Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 19/99) - It was history in the making as BHP Diamonds opened its valuation and basic sorting facility at Yellowknife airport, Thursday.

"This operation is the first of its kind in North America so it's kind of a historical moment," BHP spokesperson Graham Nicholls said.

"We know there'll be a lot of people curious about what the facility was like so we thought it was appropriate to allow the community an opportunity to see it."

Dozens of invited guests crowded into the sorting area where a small sample of rough-cut diamonds were watched over by a security guard. After today, the facility will be a closed, high-security operation.

Yellowknife Mayor Dave Lovell was on hand to thank BHP for completing the project in Yellowknife, giving credit to the mining industry for keeping the territories out of a recession.

The facility will house 15, mostly Northern- trained staff who will see more than 250,000 carats worth of diamonds sorted each month. Workers will be phased in over the next several weeks.

Nicholls talked of the value-added possibilities the BHP facility represents, pointing to the Sirius diamond- polishing plant expected to open next door.

"This is something that is seen as a value-added activity and we have no plans to get into cutting and polishing," Nicholls said.

"We're certain we'll see more operations like (Sirius Diamonds) opening here in the future."

Sirius Diamond's NWT representative Pierre Alvarez said their $1.5 million, 450 square metre cutting and polishing plant will open in May. Even though BHP and Sirius will be neighbours, Alvarez points out they're not connected at the hip.

"It's not a partnership, we're a BHP customer that will take a small portion of what BHP will produce each month," Alvarez said, adding the companies long-term projections are to hire 50 employees to operate the plant.