Andrea Markey
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 24/05) - With a larger population than that of almost half of the communities in the territories, Diavik Diamond Mine is bustling.

More than 700 employees work 12-hour shifts around the clock in two-week rotations.

Don Shierman is a crane and heavy equipment operator with Tli Cho Logistics. Here he stands with the tire of a truck that weighs more than 300 tonnes and is used to haul ore from the pit.

Office workers on-site work four days on, three days off.

Construction of a second dike, a fourth fuel tank and an underground exploratory decline is taking place this summer.

With power lines strung along the dirt roads, in the open pit and throughout the processing plants, work continues day and night.

Haul trucks loaded with ore that appear to be toys at the bottom of the pit, reveal themselves to be more than 300-tonne giants at the top.

One of the few times trucks stop during their cycle of loading and unloading ore is for "caribou crossings" during the twice yearly migration of the Bathurst herd.

Equipment operators take bagged lunches so as not to shut down operations.

The second 1.3 km long dike will cost Diavik approximately $260 million.

The dike will allow the company to access the third kimberlite pipe now covered by Lac de Gras. The large quantities of crushed rock needed to form the dike are coming from the current open pit.

The contract for the dike construction was awarded to Lac de Gras Constructors - a joint-venture between Kiewit, majority-Inuit-owned Nuna Logistics and Dogrib joint-venture Nishi-Khon SNC Lavalin.

Since underground mining will eventually take place for the three working kimberlite pipes, an underground decline is being built to determine the best mining method.

Approximately 3.5 km of underground tunnels will be needed to reach the deposits. The underground feasibility study will be done by the recently-formed Kitikmeot Cementation Mining and Development, a joint-venture between the Kitikmeot Corporation and Cementation Canada.

An exploration camp is set up this summer outside the limits of the current mining camp, on Diavik's claim block. The geologists are looking to expand the list of 64 known kimberlites on Diavik's claim block.