North Arrow drills for diamonds
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
NAUJAAT
A $3.2-million mining exploration project is bringing the promise of employment to nearly a dozen people in Naujaat.
As part of a drilling project by North Arrow Minerals, workers are collecting a 200 tonne surface sample at a kimberlite deposit near Naujaat. - photo courtesy of North Arrow Minerals |
North Arrow Minerals, a mining company that acquired the Naujaat diamond project in 2013, has begun a 4,500-metre drilling program at the site, which is approximately nine kilometres away from Naujaat.
The mine falls well within municipal boundaries, according to Naujaat senior administrative officer Rob Hedley, and already has local workers on the line for this summer's project.
"When (North Arrow Minerals) announced they were doing the drilling program, most people here were actually looking to see if they could go to work for them, because they had such good experiences a couple years ago when (the company) did the initial test drilling," Hedley said.
"I have to say, they've actually been a really good community partner."
North Arrow Minerals president, CEO and director Ken Armstrong said there are approximately 15 people on-site each day. While some of those people are brought in from the south, such as the helicopter pilot and geologist, the company has made an effort to put local boots on the ground, he said.
"Overall, for the different jobs there's about 10 to 12 positions we're hiring locally for this program, which is actually pretty high considering the stage of where this is at," Armstrong said.
"A lot of people we hired this year are people we hired in 2014 as well, so they were keen to come back and work for us, which is great."
The drilling program aims to sample kimberlite deposits between 200 and 300 metres below the surface. That will help North Arrow Minerals determine just how big the deposit is.
"If the deposit is proved down to 300 metres, that's sort of the ideal size and shape for mining, from a tonnage perspective," Armstrong said.
"It gives us an idea of how big the body might be."
Multiple holes will be drilled at an angle, with the longest hole planned to be just over 400 metres in length. The total meterage for all the holes is 4,500.
No drilling programs have been run on-site since around 2003. However, North Arrow Minerals did collect more than 1,500 tonnes of kimberlite from the surface in 2014 in order to get an idea of how much diamond was present at the mine site.
Armstrong said it can be trickier to determine the valuation of diamond deposits compared to other minerals due to a vast fluctuation in the value of individual diamonds.
"You could have a one-carat rough diamond that's been dug out of the ground that's worth $10, or you could have a one-carat rough diamond that's worth over $1,000. It's a huge swing, so you need to get enough of these diamonds to get an idea overall of how much they might be worth," he said.
Although the results of the 2014 sampling program were discouraging, they didn't take into account the presence of diamonds with orange and yellow hues, which Armstrong believes may be valuable.
"The main conclusion from the (2014) valuation was we didn't have enough diamonds to really get a proper indication of how valuable they'd be, and the price range they put on them was disappointingly low," he explained.
"But (the orange and yellow diamonds) are a very unique colour, and we spent some time over the last couple years getting some of those polished to see what they would look like."
After that exercise, the company decided it was worth collecting a larger parcel of diamond from the site to see what the valuation could be.
The program began in the last week of June and will run until mid-August. Armstrong said the company hopes to ship out the samples it collects on the annual sealift later that month.
Aside from drilling, the company is also collecting 200 tonnes of kimberlite from the surface - similar to the sample they collected in 2014 - using a miniature excavator.
"It won't be big enough to answer all of our valuation questions, but it's going to come from a different area of the deposit," Armstrong said.
"That's just to give us an idea (if) those same orangey-yellow diamonds are present in this other area."
The collection will ultimately help the company plan for a larger sample to be collected in 2018, he added.
As far as day-to-day operations go, the site's proximity to Naujaat means North Arrow Minerals isn't running a camp for its workers to live at.
Armstrong said being so close to the hamlet has its benefits, allowing the company to save money on exploration camps and services. It also acts as a check on their operations.
"The way we're operating, we're right in town and people see it every day," he said.
Hedley said the hamlet is happy with the company's operations and that the community in general will benefit if the exploration project pans out.
"It's well within the municipal boundary, so I would say yes - we are going to directly benefit in a lot of ways," he said.
"Really what it comes down to is if they can establish (the deposit), then they would come to council and obviously the nature of the terms are going to change on what type of mine they would like."
