The facility, capable of processing six tonnes per day, is producing a concentrate that will be shipped to Brazil for diamond recovery and preliminary evaluation.
The partners expect to process at least 400 tonnes of material from trenches. Work to date has confirmed the presence of mircodiamonds and macrodiamonds, but the sample size was considered inadequate to determine the quality of the stones. (A macrodiamond is equal to or greater than 0.5 mm in one dimension.)
Rio Tinto can earn up to a 70% interest in the joint venture. Guyanor acquired the property in 1994, following up on its discovery in 1983 by the French agency Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minire.
Guyanor has outlined five additional targets adjacent to the Dachine ultramafic body. Samples from two of these targets contain diamonds. The current program is designed to identify areas of high diamond density; the partners will then sample a large enough volume of material to determine the quality of the stones.
Since July 1999, Rio has spent US$900,000 on the project.
Results from processing and from diamond evaluation should be available by late June.
Guyanor is 71%-held by
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