Kennady Recovers 2.47 Carats Per Ton from Kelvin Sample
June 24, 15
(IDEX Online News) – Kennady Diamonds Inc.’s winter core drilling program at Kelvin returned a sample grade of 2.74 carats per ton from approximately 2.7 tons of kimberlite from the Kelvin North Lobe.
“We are very pleased with these excellent diamond recovery results, which confirm that Kelvin has the potential to host a high grade diamond resource,” said CEO Patrick Evans.
“Based on drilling and sampling completed to date, we estimate that the Kelvin-Faraday kimberlite cluster has the potential to host between 12 and 15 million tons at a grade of between 2 and 2.5 carats per ton.”
The three largest diamonds recovered from the Kelvin North Lobe sample are a
0.47-carat off-white, transparent, fragment with inclusions, a 0.39-carat off-white, transparent, broken tetra-hexahedron with inclusions and a 0.25-carat white/colorless, transparent, broken macle with minor inclusions.
“It’s apparent that the larger diamonds in the sample were broken during the drilling,” said Evans. “Nonetheless, the diamonds are of a high quality. As with previous Kelvin samples the number of transparent white/colorless and off-white diamonds is very high.”
A total of 662 individual diamonds described by the Geoanalytical Laboratories Diamond Services of the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC). Ninety-five percent are described as white/colorless (36%) and off-white (59%). Fourteen diamonds are described as yellow, 12 as brown and only four as gray.
Kennady said that approximately 1 ton of kimberlite from Faraday 2 is now being processed by caustic fusion at the SRC. The diamond recovery results from
this sample are expected in early July.
Processing of the 436 ton Kelvin bulk sample through the SRC dense-media separation plant is also underway and the diamond recovery results are expected before the end of the third quarter.