Diam & Specialty Minerals Summary (08 Mar) by Will Purcell Central Saskatchewan has arguably become the hotbed of Canadian diamond exploration over the past few years, but success in the neighbouring provinces of Manitoba and Alberta has lagged. Many millions of dollars were spent fruitlessly in Manitoba, mainly in the 2000s, without success. A hint of sparkle finally turned up a few years ago from the Oxford House area, but unfortunately, Altius Minerals Corp. (ALS: $14.75), which acquired the project, has been unable to find more than a few tiny commercial gems among several thousand microdiamonds recovered from an unusual form of rock.
Alberta, on the other hand, has produced plenty of kimberlites, most of them diamondiferous, but the most prospective project now appears dormant, if not dead. Randy Turner and Chris Pennimpede's Canterra Minerals Corp. (CTM), unchanged at 36 cents on 1,000 shares today, owns a 33-per-cent interest in the Buffalo Hills project, northeast of Peace River in north-Central Alberta. The company is the operator, but Mr. Turner turned his corner office over to Mr. Pennimpede, who has directed the company toward Newfoundland gold, thanks to an option on the Wilding Lake project, currently owned -- coincidentally -- by a subsidiary of Altius.
As a result, the Buffalo Hills project no longer warrants a mention even in Canterra's long-winded boilerplate at the end of its news releases, although veteran Internet miners can click their way to a brief but dated summary of the project. Canterra has an equally inactive active partner, Ken MacNeill's Star Diamond Corp.(DIAM: $0.205), which also treats the Buffalo Hills project like a museum exhibit on its website -- a decade having passed since the project warranted mention in a news release. The final 34-per-cent interest is held by Ovintiv Inc. (OVV: $33.78), which appears to have forgotten entirely that it owns a piece of a diamond play.
The story was far different in the late 1990s, when Ashton Mining of Canada Inc., majority owned by Rio Tinto PLC, was busy mini-bulk sampling several kimberlites on the project. Ashton's work climaxed with a bulk test of the K14 kimberlite, which averaged 11.8 carats per hundred tonnes across a 479-tonne batch of kimberlite. Other finds were K6, which averaged about seven carats per hundred tonnes, and K91, which yielded a grade of 12.7 carats per hundred tonnes. There was an outlier -- K252 -- that raised a few eyebrows with its 55-carat-per-hundred-tonne grade, but it was far too small to support a mine on its own.
What it and its larger but less diamondiferous sisters did support was a decent exit point for Ashton, which by then had been acquired by Stornoway Diamond Corp. In 2007, Canterra and Star Diamond each agreed to pay $8.75-million to share Ashton's two-thirds interest in the project. After a few years of enthusiasm, the accountants for both companies insisted on writing down the project, but it remains on their books and in the back of their minds.
Northeastern Alberta and the far northwest of Saskatchewan also spawned a diamond hunt in the Athabasca region, when Peter Dasler's Canalaska Uranium Ltd. (CVV) dashed in and staked several circular geophysical targets that it thought could be kimberlites. CanAlaska's stock, worth barely a dime a year ago, sprang to life this winter thanks to new interest in its uranium prospects. It lost a cent to 47 cents on 360,000 shares today, but the now dormant diamond play carried it to $1.55 five years ago after De Beers agreed to look at the targets. (Take a look it did, but an energetic drill program was cut short late in 2016 when it did not like what it was seeing.) Nevertheless, Mr. Dasler is not quite ready to give up.