from Will Purcell
Patrick Evans's Kennady Diamonds Inc. (KDI), up 15 cents to $5.94 on 9,000 shares, should have an all-year exploration camp set up at Kennady North before the end of the month. Mr. Evans called off drilling late last month when fog grounded his helicopters, delaying the resupply of Kennady's drill rigs at Kelvin, 10 kilometres northeast of Gahcho Kue in the Northwest Territories. The company initially planned another 10,000 metres of delineation and step-out drilling this year, but the tally had already reached 16,600 metres when Mr. Evans called a temporary halt to the work. His revised target is 18,000 metres, with much of the expanded drilling taking place along the north end of Kelvin, where the long but generally narrow kimberlite appears to widen. Mr. Evans is now considering a more promotable -- and costly -- use for his new camp. He says Kennady North "is currently planning to accelerate" the bulk sampling of Kelvin, with work perhaps commencing early next year. He adds that the potential for a 500- to 700-tonne bulk sampling program by reverse-circulation drilling is under consideration. Although Mr. Evans smothered his plan in thick Howe Street fudge, he is a former South African diplomat skilled in the craft of promising less than he is expects to deliver. (Not only did his big 2014 drill program nearly double in scale, his promised 25-tonne mini-bulk sample of Kelvin grew into a two-stage, 55-tonne test.) The first half of that mini-bulk test was a mild disappointment, yielding a grade of just 1.79 carats per tonne on a 0.85-millimetre sieve. A much smaller test last year averaged 4.32 carats per tonne over 4.3 tonnes of kimberlite. Fortunately, Mr. Evans sustained his promotion by keeping to his low-key pitch that Kelvin would grade comparably with Gahcho Kue, coming in at about two carats per tonne. By combining the 2013 and 2014 tests he now touts Kelvin with a grade of 2.16 carats per tonne. Mr. Evans was nevertheless not pleased with the result, noting the 2014 sample yielded a smaller proportion of larger diamonds than the 2013 test. As a result, Kennady will perform microdiamond recovery on another 4.5 tonnes of drill core to flesh out its size distribution profile. Either way, an increasing number of diamond investors consider Kelvin to be Canada's top diamond exploration play, a belief the shrewd Mr. Evans will undoubtedly do his best to nurture. Meanwhile, Mr. Evans has his hands full with his main diamond promotion, Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (MPV). Mountain Province, down seven cents to $5.20 on 24,000 shares, is still seeking a big loan to cover its cash calls for its 49-per-cent share of a Gahcho Kue mine. The company's majority co-venturer, De Beers Canada, has commenced construction of the mine, which carried an estimated cost of $860-million in a feasibility study revised early this year. As well, Mountain Province must make two further payments to De Beers under the terms of its joint venture agreement: $10-million when production commences and $49.4-million in principal and interest within the following 18 months. Mr. Evans recently sold another $100-million worth of stock and he promised to complete the preliminaries for a $370-million (U.S.) debt facility by the end of the year. That financing would go a long way toward meeting Mountain Province's cash requirements, but closing the deal on favourable terms could prove challenging even for Mr. Evans.