Dominion Reports Q3 Rough Output Flat, 10% Jump in Q1-Q3

(IDEX Online News) – Rough output from the Diavik mine in Canada's North West Territories, was unchanged on the year in the third quarter at 1.67 million carats, Dominion Diamond Corp reported.

Processing volumes and diamonds recovered in the third calendar quarter were consistent with the same quarter of the prior year, the firm said in a statement. "Through the third quarter, initiatives associated with improving availabilities, removing plant bottlenecks and increasing utilization of equipment were maintained, which have contributed to the significant improvement in tonnage processed and carats recovered on a year-to-date basis. On the mining front, continued efforts around mining equipment and shift utilization and increasing payload on equipment translated into better than expected ore production. The company also reported that output for the first nine months of this year jumped 10 percent to 5.69 million carats."

Dominion also revised upwards its full-year forecast for output from Diavik to 6.5 million carats from its original estimate of 6.1 million carats.

The company said that mining activity will be carried out completely underground. It expects to extract approximately 700,000 tonnes of ore from A-154 North, 500,000 tonnes from A-154 South and about 800,000 tonnes from the A-418 kimberlite pipe.

"The 8-percent increase in expected carat production from run of mine ore compared to the original mine plan results primarily from an increase in ore processed as a result of improvements in the availability and utilization of the processing plant and the availability of stockpiled ore at the beginning of the year."