KIM Report

Respectable Showing For the Diamond Sector at PDAC 2011

Posted by David

Last week Monday’s technical session at the PDAC on diamonds was titled: “21 years of Canadian diamonds: Coming of age?”. Five talks were given and three were based on Canadian diamond projects. The remaining two were on the Bunder project in India with Rio Tinto, and the development of Petra Diamonds to being a major producer in Africa.

While not full to capacity, the seating room approached that mark during a few of the talks and significant figures in the diamond industry were present. Including the discoverers (or co-discoverer) of Canada’s first two diamond mines: Chuck Fipke (Ekati, with Stu Blusson), and Eira Thomas (Diavik). Also present were academics, geology students, financial analysts, independent investors, and representatives from most senior and junior diamond exploration/mining companies.

The award for most entertaining talk goes to Jim Davidson of Petra Diamonds (AIM:PDL), for his repeated well-placed, but thinly veiled stabs at sector giant De Beers for buying some of their declared “unprofitable” mines (e.g., the Cullinan in South Africa) and turning them to the opposite within a few years. Technical award goes to Robin Hopkins for going into detail on how macrodiamond (the economic stones) grades are extrapolated from the microdiamond grades. This was during his talk on what has been developing at the Renard project as it progresses towards a Mineral Resource update for this year as part of Stornoway’s feasibility study for mine at that location within a few years. The most notable aspects of Stornoway’s recent work (aside from buying out partner SOQUEM’s 50% share in the project in exchange for equity) is the increase of the project to a 25 year mine life with a NPV of $885 million and pre-tax IRR of 24.8%.

De Beers geologist Brad Wood gave a fine synopsis of the discovery, evaluation, development, and starting in 2008, production of the Victor deposit in northern Ontario. He discussed the challenges in the natural environment and in working with the affected communities in realizing the mine. Much of the talk dealt with the hurdles of construction. A lot of lessons were learned in the process, mainly technical ones that he passed on to the audience. An example is how the company utilized the large diameter drill holes left over from the deposit evaluation stage as wells to keep the mine drained as it is suitated in Muskeg.

Peregrine Diamonds updated the audience with further news of more kimberlite and more diamond finds at Chidliak (51% owned by BHP Billiton) on Baffin Island. Chief geoscientist Jennifer Pell noted that fifty kimberlite bodies have been discovered, about half by surface prospecting. Many of the kimberlites not exposed have been found by geophysics using aeromagnetic surveys as they typically exhibit a clear “bullseye” pattern. One of the more recently discovered bodies was in fact, found by accident by a university student sponsored by Peregrine doing fieldwork on the glacial terranes of the area. More kimberlite discoveries are bound to follow with the drilling season starting this month.

Although diamond shares (and really, most companies worldwide) have taken a major hit this week with the Sendai earthquake in Japan, the sector seems able to continue capitalizing on new discoveries and mines nearing production as investors again take notice. If anything, the recent recession did the sector a small favour in driving out diamond companies with below-average/extremely speculative prospects to bankruptcy or at least to other commodities. In regards to this, it will be interesting to watch Shear Minerals in the coming months. Their efforts to resurrect the Jericho mine in Nunavut may renew some investor interest in higher-risk diamond stocks.

Disclaimer: The author holds shares of SWY, SRM, and PGD. Relevant comments are welcome and encouraged. Spam comments will be deleted. This article is based on the opinions and experience of the author. Please conduct due diligence when investing. ©KIM Report 2011 www.kimreport.com

Chidliak: Peregrine Diamonds Discovers New Hope for Arctic Diamond Exploration

Posted by David

The one diamond discovery that commanded the most attention at this year’s PDAC convention was Peregrine Diamonds‘ kimberlite (and subsequent diamond) discovery on its Chidliak property in south Baffin Island, Nunavut. Chidliak is 9800 km², and since the discovery of diamonds on the property, Peregrine has added a buffer claim around the property of ~3200 km² in area called Qilaq this February. BHP-Billiton has earn-in rights of up to 51% in Chidliak if they spend $22.3 million on the property over the next five years. Although BHP is spending five times what Peregrine is, Peregrine remains the operator for 2009′s program.

Chidliak was the focus of two talks in two separate diamond sessions at this year’s PDAC. What is so interesting about Chidliak is the sequence of events that led to the discovery of three kimberlite bodies: CH-1, -2, and -3, on the property.

Till sampling of kimberlite indicator minerals from 2005 to 2007 confirmed that kimberlite was present in the area. These samples indicated that 10% of the garnets found were G10. Last year, an aeromagnetic survey that covered less than 15% of the property resulted in a number of magnetic anomalies. These are commonly associated with kimberlite, but not always. Field geologists sent out to investigate the three most promising anomalies encountered kimberlite rock at the surface. Approximately 1100 kg mini-bulk surface samples from the CH-1 and CH-2 kimberlites gave back 2.17 c/t and 0.9 c/t, respectively. This includes a 2.01 c gem-quality colourless resorbed octahedron from the CH-1 sample.

These are in no way statistical samples of the diamond potential of the kimberlites, but they are superb returns from a grassroots exploration program that has yet to put a drill hole into the ground. Considering these encouraging results, there is significant upside to this project. Over 170 magnetic anomalies remain from the aeromagnetic survey for investigation and the bulk of the claim remains yet to be surveyed. Consider that the size of the Chidliak and Qilaq claims are much larger than the Ekati (BHP-Billiton) or Diavik (Rio Tinto and Harry Winston) mine camps in the Northwest Territories.

Another long-term benefit for the project is its proximity to infrastructure. That is of course a relative term when in the arctic. The property is less than 100 km from the territorial capital of Iqaluit and even closer to the coast, unlike the land-locked and isolated Lac de Gras mines that are ~400 km from Yellowknife by ice road.

Considering that current mines in the pipeline are either modest in comparison to Ekati and Diavik: e.g. Snap Lake (De Beers), Renard (Stornoway and SOQUEM), DO-27 (Peregrine), or have slowed in their development: e.g. Fort a la Corne (Shore Gold and Newmont), Gahcho Kue (Mountain Province and DeBeers); Chidliak hopefully represents a large part of a new period of Canadian diamond exploration.

Disclaimer: The author holds 4000 shares of SWY and 20 of HW. This article is based on the personal opinions and experience of the author. Please conduct due diligence when investing. ©KIM Report 2009 www.kimreport.com

Large carats at Gahcho Kue, worth the wait?

Posted by David

Earlier this month, Mountain Province Diamonds (TSX-MPV, AMEX-MDM) dropped a big rock in the otherwise stagnant waters of diamond exploration and investment. The company announced that they had recovered a 25.13 c colourless octahedral diamond of exceptional clarity from the Tuzo kimberlite in the Gahcho Kue cluster, Northwest Territories. This diamond was valued at approximately (USD) $17,500/c, or $439,775 total. This is the largest diamond recovered in Canada during an exploration project. 

 

MPV discovered the Gahcho Kue cluster, which lies in the AK property in the Kennady Lake region. It owns 49% of the project, with De Beers Canada as the operator and majority stake holder. The geologic environment of the project is in the southeast Slave craton. The cluster was discovered in 1997 and DeBeers Canada (then Monopros) was quickly brought in as a JV partner where is could earn up to 51% of the project by shouldering a large portion of the costs. DeBeers has since exercised this option. Four main kimberlite bodies comprise the cluster (see map): Tuzo, 5034, Hearne, and Tesla. Tesla is not currently considered to be a resource as its small surface area, 0.4 hectares, is less than one third that of the next largest body: Tuzo at 1.4 hectares.

 

The geology of the three currently economic pipes is varied. 5034 is an irregular body of hypabyssal kimberlite, Hearne is a mix of hypabyssal and diatreme facies kimberlite, and Tuzo is believed to be the deeper part of a diatreme with no root zone found as of yet. These bodies together create a large reserve of ore that has been thoroughly drilled and modeled over the past decade. In a general way the geology could be seen as an intermediate between the Churchill (Stornoway Diamonds & Shear Minerals) and Snap Lake (De Beers Canada) projects that are entirely hypabyssal kimberlite and the Fort a la Corne (Shore Gold & Newmont) project where all of the kimberlite found is pyroclastic or resedimented pyroclastic.

 

The diamond was recovered from LDDH sampling in March of this year. After the sampling was completed the kimberlite was made into a concentrate at De Beers’ Grand Prairie, Alberta facility and then shipped to the GEMDL laboratory in South Africa (also run by De Beers) to recover the remaining diamonds. When this in completed, the diamonds will be sent to the DTC facility in London, U.K., for cleaning and valuation.

 

Of the three main kimberlites, Tuzo is the least developed in terms of sampling. The recent bulk sample was in part an effort to rectify this. 5034 has 8.7 Mt of indicated ore at 1.6 c/t and 4.9 Mt of inferred ore at 1.7 c/t. Hearne has 5.7 Mt of indicated ore at 1.7 c/t and 1.5 Mt of inferred ore at 1.53 c/t. Tuzo, meanwhile only has 10.6 Mt of inferred ore at 1.15 c/t.  MPV and De Beers are trying to remove the uncertainty with this body. For comparative purposes Diavik a few hundred km to the north has about 29.8 Mt of reserves in total at 3.2 c/t (measured+indicated), or 95.36 Mc. Thus far, Gahcho Kue has about 46 Mc (indicated+inferred). Keep in mind that the Diavik mine has unusually high grade. MPV estimates a mine life of about 24 years.

 

In terms of diamond valuation, an independent 2006 report by WWW International Diamond Consultants Ltd. gave (in USD) $101/c for 5034, $54/c for Hearne, and $43/c for Tuzo. The average for all three pipes was $75/c and it was noted that proper cleaning (usually in a hot acid bath) would raise the value of many of the diamonds by up to 10%.

 

It has been over ten years since the discovery at Gahcho Kue. Mining is expected to begin in full by 2012, giving about a fourteen year lag between discovery and mine. Diavik took only ten years in total to begin full capacity mining and Ekati took even less. Following statements for interviews with MPV management, it would seem that they would prefer a faster to-mine plan, but De Beers has preferred a more methodical approach. In light of what happened at Jericho with Tahera, perhaps this might be a more prudent option. Though perhaps De Beers has been focusing the bulk of its attention on their 100% owned Snap Lake and Victor projects in the Northwest Territories and Ontario, respectively.

 

Regardless of the slow timetable set for developing the project, the discovery of this diamond, along with other ones >5 c found in the past few years, has established the potential for large, high quality stones. As diamond price goes up exponentially with carat size, the profit margins for the future mine are looking larger. Now that above average grades, decent diamond values, and large, high quality, high value diamonds have been established at Gahcho Kue the main hurdle is to finance the project to completion as it will be about four years until commercial production. MPV needs about $370 million to fund its 49% share. The current market cap of the company is $280 million. The company has about $1.5 million net in cash and medium-term deposits, and has invested about $65 million in the project overall. While the sale of the diamond announced last week should pay for a few drill holes, in order to keep the full 49% share of the project MPV will undoubtedly require financing. This strategy may run into some resistance as diamonds are not a hot item in the current market and lenders in general are skittish after their collective failure to recognize the risks of sub prime mortgages and ABCP. Also, the fate of the aforementioned last diamond mine to open in the Arctic may be scaring way any potential suitors. Raising more capital by dilution is only a partial solution at this moment considering the vast funds involved. Although the company is not poorly positioned to issuing private placements effectively as its stock price has not suffered anywhere near to the degree that many of its peers have (mainly $4 to $5 over the past year). Another option is to default on their share of the costs and let De Beers’ deep pockets take care of things in return for letting their share slide to 40%. A third option that is being signaled by a strategic review of the company as alluded to in a National Post article last week is that the company may be putting itself up for sale.

 

Regardless of what option the company pursues, the nature of the deposit is likely to reap large rewards for shareholders when interest in the diamond market returns. What remains to be seen is that whether MPV chooses the option that gives the best gain to the shareholders.

 

Disclaimer: The author holds no shares of MPV. This article is based on the author’s personal research and experience. Please perform your own due diligence when investing.

 

Diamond report from New Nadina needs some polish

Posted by David

Last Monday, New Nadina Explorations Ltd. (TSX.V-NNA), a diamond explorer, published results from a microdiamond assay of core from the optimistically named “Bling” kimberlite in the Lac De Gras region of the Northwest Territories. The Lac De Gras Region was the site of the first significant diamond discoveries in Canada, and is home to the Ekati (BHP Billiton) and Diavik (Rio Tinto and Harry Winston) diamond mines. The Bling kimberlite is located on the Monument Diamond Project in the Blue Pearl Cluster, and is the sixth such body to be discovered there. NNA owns 57.49% of the project. Chris Jennings, famous for his diamond finds in southern Africa and somewhat mixed results Canada, owns 22.11% along with his wife, Jeanne. Archon Minerals Ltd. (TSX.V-ACS), run by Stewart Blusson, co-discoverer of the Ekati Mine with Chuck Fipke, owns the remaining 20.4%.

 

Petrologically, the Bling kimberlite is pyroclastic (diatreme/crater) facies kimberlite, i.e. post-eruption/non-magmatic. The kimberlite was intersected during drilling of a 45º angled core hole from 171 m to 203 m. It contains abundant coarse olivine, pyrope, and chromium-rich diopside, minerals strongly associated with the mantle. But are they associated with diamonds in this case? The large size of many of crystals, up to 2 cm in diameter, indicates that they are possibly not fragments of diamondiferous peridotite xenoliths brought up by the kimberlite, but rather they are related to the kimberlite. Such grains are often termed megacrysts. Ergo, this information does not say much about potential for diamond abundance or lack thereof, although chemical analysis of said megacrysts could (but that is for another article).

 

However, upon later correspondence with Mr. Kivi, the P.Geo. in charge of the project,  it was stated that these large crystals are likely not to be megacrysts as stated above, but rather that they are likely to be from deep mantle origins, ~200 km depth. If this is the cases, then Bling would have sampled a very large column of mantle in the diamond stability field, greatly increasing the chances of entraining diamonds upon the kimberlites ascent. It still remains, however, that chemical analysis of these grains is required to prove things either way.

 

What is interesting, are the 23 mantle xenoliths of lherzolite and harzburgite, incorrectly spelt in the report as “lhertzolite” and “hartzburgite”, respectively. Harzburgite (G10 garnet association), and to a lesser extent lherzolite (G9 garnet association), are the major parent rocks that diamond forms in, prior to ascent to the surface in a kimberlite (most cases) or lamproite (rare cases, e.g. Argyle in Australia). The presence of potential parent rocks for diamonds as xenoliths in a kimberlite is a good indicator for diamonds.

 

The best indicator for diamond in a kimberlite is diamond itself. The concentration of diamond is so low in kimberlite (0.2 g/t is considered a good mining grade as 0.2 g = 1 c) that microscopic (<1 mm) diamond counts are used to extrapolate the larger diamond content of a kimberlite when dealing with small sample sizes, such as drill core. The 120.25 kg sample of core assayed in the report held 67 diamonds greater than 0.106 mm in size. By plotting the microdiamond counts against the size classes, it is possible to extrapolate the distribution of diamonds towards higher sizes (see below; data from the 0.6, 1.18, 1.7, and 2.36 sieves have been omitted to correctly fit the trend line as they were zero values).

 

The power-type trend line here produced a fairly good fit with the data and has an R² value of 0.9897 (1 is perfect). Extrapolating to the 1 mm size class gives ~1.56 diamonds of that size. It is possible to take this estimation a little further. The mass of a roughly spherical diamond 1 mm in diameter is 0.0000092 carats. Thus there are ~0.0000143 carats of diamond in this size class. With respect to diamonds of this size, the grade for the sample is 0.00012 c/t. A full grade estimate could be obtained by repeating this process for every significant (i.e. economic) size class and adding the grades together. Although the grades would become rapidly smaller with increasing diamond size due to the nature of the distribution. The problem with this particular sample is that not enough data exists to get a strong estimate of the diamond population. The sample is not large enough. Small samples are extremely vulnerable to the “nugget effect” were the presence or absence of one or two larger stones can totally skew the numbers away from the actual value. As things stand now, this sample is useful for showing that the Bling kimberlite is diamondiferous to some degree, but inconclusive beyond that. The next step for NNA and its JV partners is to try and obtain a mini-bulk sample in the 10’s of tonnes.

 

Looking at this company as a potential investor with some background in the field, there are a number of troubling issues:

 

1. The insinuation that the presence of megacrysts is indicative of diamond potential. As mentioned above, this is not true. Research suggests that megacrysts are a product of crystallization of the “proto-kimberlite” at depth in the mantle prior to ascent, and not the product of disaggregation on mantle xenoliths, diamondiferous or otherwise. Even with Mr. Kivi’s argument that these are not megacrysts, but indeed deep xenocrysts/xenoliths, the company has yet to publish any evidence either way. If this was the case, then why was this explanation not included in the press release? The company would have likely been better off not mentioning these characteristics of the kimberlite at all until they had determined their exact relevance. These crystals may turn out to be indicative of bling at Bling, or be a red herring.

 

2. The incorrect spelling of geologic terms such as harzburgite and lherzolite. Also using the term “chrome diopside” when in fact chromium-rich or chromian diopside is the proper term. Chrome is what you get when you plate chromium or an alloy of it onto another metal, e.g. steel. Yes, it seems like a small thing, and it may be just the fault of the fellow they hire to run IR, but where is the P.Geo. who is supposed to look over and sign off on each report? If the trained, accredited professional is not catching these obvious mistakes in material released to the public, what about the stuff that is not made public?

 

3. The mediocre results on the monument property. Finding a diamondiferous kimberlite is not terribly news-breaking anymore. Please see an earlier article on Diamonds North regarding this. Many other juniors out there, Stornoway, Peregrine, and Shear Minerals to name a few, have far more established properties. Some of these have established grades and even diamond valuations.

 

Concerning items (1) and (2), it is tempting to regard these as oversights, as Mr. Blusson and Mr. Jennings have years of experience and have both found diamond mines in the past. They also are not part of NNA, but only JV partners on the project. With regards to (3) I do realize that this is a very small junior and is working diligently to find and expand upon potential diamond deposits. It is impressive to note that NNA did manage to get assays back in less than two months from the discovery of the Bling kimberlite. Given the current harsh market for diamond explorers and producers NNA cannot afford to even make small mistakes that would possibly dampen the interest of potential investors. It may be that further work on the Monument Project or one of their other properties will bear fruit, but NNA’s lack of oversight on minor things that are easy to catch could leave some investors eyeing the competency of the people in charge with some suspicion.

 

Disclaimer: The author holds no shares of NNA. This article is based on the personal opinions and experience of the author. Please do your own due diligence when investing.

 

 

 

 

Diamonds Comments(0) June 23, 2008 4:45 pm

The Diamond Market

Posted by David

“The demand for diamonds is driven by two factors: greed and vanity. We do not foresee a shortage of either two in the future.” to paraphrase a former director of the Diamond Trading Company (the wing of DeBeers responsible for selling rough diamonds).

 

There has been some talk as of late of rising diamond prices. Part of this is that diamonds, like almost all commodities are priced in U.S. dollars. As the dollar goes down the price goes up. Most economists would agree that the US dollar is falling relative to the other major currencies. This situation is different from a few years ago, when South African producers were closing mines, some in part due to end of mine life, but also in part due to a strong Rand versus the U.S. dollar.

 

On the other hand, news stories such as the failed auction of a 72 c pear-cut D flawless diamond certainly grasp the attention of people following global diamond trends.

 

So in which direction is the diamond market heading? If one were to look at the stock performance of most diamond mining and exploration companies, and take that as an indicator of the diamond market, then things are definitely downhill. That poses the question of whether the very poor performance of diamond companies (see a previous article) has anything to do with loss of demand, or if it is due to more general financial pressures. Prolific analysts in the industry, such as Allan Barry Laboucan, believe that the diamond market is strong, that the above quote stays true, and current market lows are temporary.

 

I have to agree with Mr. Laboucan and his like-minded colleagues. Diamonds will continue to see strong demand. In particular the emerging upper-class of very populous countries (China and India) will continue to be a growing market for luxury goods, on that will outstrip that of the U.S. Even if only 1 % of the 2.4 billion people living China and India make it to the high disposable in income level to afford luxury goods in the next ten years, that is a new crop of 24 million consumers – a number a little short of the population of Canada.

 

With a few exceptions, e.g. Jericho (operations now suspended by Tahera), there have been no large diamond mines opened in the past 5 years since the end of the 1990’s diamond boom and the startup of Ekati (BHP Billiton) and Diavik (Rio Tinto & Harry Winston). This will disturb the supply chain for diamonds for years to come. Should current projects falter now, a shortage of diamonds in the near future is inevitable and will be accompanied by rising diamond prices. Current projects, mostly in Canada, include Snap Lake and Victor (DeBeers), Fort a la Corne (Shore Gold), and Renard (Stornoway).

 

The problem with diamonds is that they are not just any other commodity. Gemstones are valuated individually based on a number of characteristics unique to each individual stone. It can be difficult to determine if prices for diamonds are increasing due to this increased complexity. Mr. Laboucan alludes to this by mentioning the fact that companies producing larger/high quality diamonds will always see strong business as such goods are for the “ultra-rich” and immune to economic swings. The market for smaller/lower quality diamonds is more sensitive to economic pressures and is mainly a function of the level of disposable income possessed by the upper-middle class. This brings us back to the emerging middle class in the BRIC countries, the potential size of which could very well dwarf that of North America, and possibly even Europe as well. Should the economies of these countries continue to grow, scenario becomes a strong possibility. Even with signs of slowdown in China, other growing countries such as India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey will pull up the slack.

 

With these fundamentals in mind, a cautious investor should be able to pick the most promising diamond companies now, when they are cheap. Assuming due diligence has been properly performed; strong gains could be reaped in the market within a few years time.

 

Disclaimer: The author holds 500 shares of Stornoway Diamonds. This article is based on the personal opinions and experience of the author. Investors are responsible for their own due diligence.

Diamonds Comments(0) May 12, 2008 10:53 am