De Beers, Partners Speeding up Canada Mine Venture

De Beers Canada Inc has approved its share of the 2005 budget for an Advanced Exploration and Evaluation Plan aimed at speeding up a decision regarding pre-feasibility in 2008 for its Fort a la Corne Joint Venture.

The De Beers share of the project is 42.25 percent, and the overall budget of up to $25.6 million for the 2005 program is the largest annual commitment to date.

"The increased level of expenditure agreed to by our joint venture partners, Kensington Resources and Cameco Corporation, will allow us to assess a larger portion of the Fort a la Corne kimberlite field than in previous years," said Richard Molyneux, President and CEO of De Beers Canada Inc. "This will compress the exploration timeline and provide targets for subsequent evaluation work."

Speeding up the Fort a la Corne project, which is located 50 kilometers northeast of Prince Albert in Saskatchewan, is part of De Beers' strategy of fast tracking exploration projects in an attempt to meet the increasing demand worldwide for diamonds.

In the first stage of the program, the partners will emphasize geological drilling and micro-diamond analysis to determine the internal geology and grades of the targeted kimberlites.

If the results are encouraging, then delineation drilling and mini-bulk sampling of selected units will be carried out to confirm the macro-diamond potential. The joint venture partners have not yet decided on the kimberlite selection for the 2005 program.

Other work will include geotechnical and hydro-geological drilling, preliminary environmental data collection and ongoing stakeholder consultation.