BAFFIN ISLAND
A company looking to start Baffin Island's first diamond mine has made some management and structure changes to help make that possible.
Peregrine Diamonds has formed a new wholly-owned subsidiary called Peregrine Exploration to identify and acquire diamond properties for exploration and development. Peregrine Exploration will also manage all Canadian non-Chidliak assets of the company.
Peregrine Diamonds will continue to focus on completing its program at Chidliak on Baffin Island and advancing the project toward production.
Eric Friedland has moved from CEO of Peregrine Diamonds to executive chairman of both Peregrine Diamonds and Peregrine Exploration, while Brooke Clements has moved from president of Peregrine Diamonds to president and CEO of Peregrine Exploration.
Taking over president and CEO duties of Peregrine Diamonds is Tom Peregoodoff, former executive vice president of business development.
"We thought maybe there's a better way for us to capture value from some of our non-Chidliak assets and at the same time ensure we keep our focus on pushing Chidliak toward development," said Peregoodoff.
"It was to align the management with the structure. If in the future we're going to try and capture value from our exploration assets, we needed some strong leadership in the company that has those assets. Brooke Clements has got a tremendous, proven track record in early stage exploration success, so he was a natural to take over the exploration assets. I've got experience with more advanced projects, resource development and leading larger teams."
As part of BHP Billiton, Peregoodoff led a major nickel project in Australia as well as an exploration program for potash in Ethiopia.
Chidliak, which could be Baffin Island's first diamond mine, is currently at the resource development stage. In January the company increased its initial inferred resources at CH6 by 15 per cent.
"Our bulk sample program is kicking off," said Peregoodoff. "We'll start large diameter reverse circulation drilling in the next couple of weeks, so people need to be looking out for the results of that, which we'll expect in August or September. The other thing people need to look out for is how we're proceeding with daylighting value from some of our other assets."
That includes DO27 at Lac de Gras, which has an indicated resource of almost 19 million carats at a grade of approximately one carat per ton.
Peregoodoff says he wants everyone to stay tuned and says there are great things coming up for the company.
