Stornoway Backs out of PikooGrenville Thomas and Kenneth Armstrong's North Arrow Minerals Inc. (NAR), down two cents to 70 cents on 6,000 shares, is waiting on indicator mineral chemistry from 441 till samples collected this spring at Pikoo, a diamond project east of La Ronge in Saskatchewan. Mr. Armstrong says the results, expected late this summer, will further evaluate drill targets on the western part of the property and will start the process on the eastern portion of Pikoo. He expects to drill, although when remains in question. North Arrow says its exploration will continue through the fall, and also in the late winter and spring of 2015. North Arrow earned an 80-per-cent interest in Pikoo from Matt Manson's Stornoway Diamond Corp. (SWY: $0.67) last year by completing a 10-hole drill program late in 2013. North Arrow encountered kimberlite in nine of the tests and one of the targets, PK-150, proved significantly diamondiferous. The company recovered hundreds of microdiamonds in a 210-kilogram batch of kimberlite, including 23 stones large enough to sit on a 0.85-millimetre sieve. Those stones weighed a cumulative 0.28 carat, suggesting a grade of 1.3 carats per tonne. PK-150 became a promoter's dream on the heels of those diamond counts, but Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Thomas were not sufficiently enthused to go back for larger samples, probably because of the small size of the kimberlite. Mr. Manson did not show great exuberance either: Stornoway declined to exercise a back-in right that would have allowed it to double its current 20-per-cent interest by reimbursing North Arrow triple its exploration expenditures. Nevertheless, both companies are sufficiently enamoured with Pikoo to step up their hunt for larger kimberlites on the play.