WHO is the private partner?????? hmmm
Remarkable is the consistent descriptions of the stones being overwhelmingly clear and white from the SRC lab and this continues with the 2022 results. Photographs of the >0.3mm stones have been provided and can be viewed on JV partner Artic Star’s website at www.arcticstar.ca.
If this trend continues into the larger commercial stones, it bodes well for a higher-than-average prices for the Sequoia diamonds. Average prices of commercial diamonds in the Lac De Gras field are highly variable (From $US30/ct to $US450/ct), from kimberlite and kimberlite. Sequoia will need to have goods at the higher end of this spectrum to be economic, the coarse distribution, predominance of white clear stones, the high population of type 2 stones and the concurring indicator mineral chemistry are layers of evidence that this is achievable. A larger sample with >1000ct of commercial size diamonds will be required to confirm this. This sample is planned for the 2024 Winter Road.
The geological observations from each hole report three main rock types, a Coherent Kimberlite, a Volcaniclastic kimberlite, and a transitional kimberlite between these two types, a review of the diamond tenure of each rock type and their distribution is underway and will be reported when completed.
Planning and budgeting are underway for the 2023 program at Diagras Project and the Company looks forward to the next drilling.
Yari Nieken, President & Chief Executive Officer, commented “The company is overall happy with the results from the 2022 drilling program despite the lab delays in assaying them. This year was very positive and in line with the technical teams’ expectations we look forward to the 2023 exploration season to continue our journey with this historical project. We are also excited to see that the global industrial diamond market is expected to grow in the forecast period of 2023-2028 at a CAGR of 3% to reach USD $2.2 billion by 2026 due to speedy development in construction and automotive industries.”
Figure 1
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Figure 1: Size Frequency Graph: Stone size in carats versus Stones per tonne. Green line, Sequoia 2021 results, Red line Sequoia total combined results. Red curve to the left, is for guidance a 1ct/t grade curve with average gradient. Note that it appears the lower gradient Sequoia curves will converge on this line at large stone sizes.
About Margaret Lake Diamonds Inc.
MLD is a Canadian based mineral exploration company. As part of its joint venture with Arctic Star Exploration, MLD holds an 18.5 per cent interest in the Diagras diamond project Northwest Territories property. The property hosts 13 known kimberlites originally discovered by DeBeers in the 1990’s and MLD believes there is an opportunity to apply modern exploration techniques to define additional kimberlites