IQALUIT
Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. (TSX:PGD) will spend $7 million in 2014 to further define diamond resources at its wholly owned Chidliak diamond project on Baffin Island. This year’s work is in preparation for bulk sampling in 2015, which would set the stage for pre-feasibility studies of what could be Nunavut’s first diamond mine.

A crew digs out Peregrine Diamond's Chidliak camp earlier this past march. Workers are on-site now preparing for spring and summer drilling and core-sampling projects to further define resource potential at the Baffin Island project. - courtesy Peregrine Diamond Ltd.

The company has already completed bulk sampling on one kimberlite (CH-6), confirming its economic potential. Two other kimberlites (CH-7 and CH-44) are ready for bulk sampling in 2015 as well.

“This winter we’re doing geophysical surveying and heli-portable circulation drilling -- target drilling,” said Brooke Clements, Peregrine president.

This winter’s program, already underway at a the Chidliak camp, is to define targets for core sampling in July.

“The work this year is core drilling on kimberlites we’ve already identified as having economic potential,” Clements said.

“We’ll be drilling on known kimberlites to better define them. Some other drilling will be on new targets -- new kimberlite discoveries - in prep for bulk sampling.”

Exploration for new kimberlites will be focused in the area of existing deposits.

“If we discover a kimberlite with significant diamonds, we may put that into the bulk queue,” Clements added.

“Hopefully, by the end of 2015 we’ll really have defined a centre of gravity for a mining project.”

A resource is expected to be declared soon following Perigrine’s 2013 bulk sampling of kimberlite CH-6.

Peregrine has a custom large-diameter drill rig scheduled for sea-lift into Iqaluit this September.

Peregrine discovered the Chidliak diamond district in 2008, and since then has located 67 kimberlites, nine of which have been identified as potentially economic.

In 2013, Peregrine produced a 404-tonne sample showing a grade of 2.58 carats per tonne for diamonds larger than the 1.18 mm sieve sized. Last February, a 1,013 carat parcel of diamonds from the sample returned an average market price of USD $213 per carat, according to company documentation.

Diamond resources have yet to be defined on the discovery, but the 2015 program should advance Peregrine to that stage.

Fifteen people are on-site at the Chidliak camp now, and a further 10 are expected once the drilling contractor arrives.

Three or four of the camp workers are from Iqaluit and Pangnirtung. The drilling contractor for this season’s work is New Brunswick’s Lantech Drilling Services Inc.

The 748,000 hectare Chidliak project is 120 kilometres northeast of Iqaluit. Peregrine has several other exploration projects: two on Baffin, including Chidliak; two in the Eastern Arctic, and four near Lac De Gras in northeast NWT.