Milestones ahead for Kennady Diamonds in NWT

Kennady Diamonds (TSXV: KDI; US-OTC: KDIAF) — whose share price soared 277% to $5.24 per share in 2013 — is among 16 junior companies Haywood Securities believes offer short-term investment opportunity with strong management teams, prospective projects and enough funding and access to capital to produce news over the next few months.

The Haywood team points out in its junior exploration first-quarter 2014 report that the company’s 18,000-metre drill program kicks off in the first quarter of 2014, as does the collection of a 25- to 30-tonne bulk sample at its Kelvin kimberlite. Results of the bulk sample should be released in the third quarter of 2014, with a maiden resource estimate to follow in the fourth quarter of the year.

The Toronto-based company’s 100%-owned Kennady North project, 280 km northeast of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, consists of two known kimberlites — Kelvin and Faraday. The project is 10 km from the Gahcho Kué diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, a joint-venture between De Beers (51%) and Mountain Province Diamonds (TSX: MPV; NYSE-MKT: MDM) (49%) that is expected to start production in the fourth quarter of 2015.

A 5,000-metre drill program during the first half of early 2013 at Kennady North returned a sample grade of 8.44 carats per tonne. The largest three diamonds recovered were a 2.48-carat, off-white transparent octahedral; a 0.90-carat, off-white transparent irregular; and a 0.75-carat, off-white transparent octahedral.

A 3,900-metre drill program at the Northwest Lobe of the Kelvin kimberlite during mid-2013 returned a grade of 4.56 carats per tonne, with the largest three diamonds being a 1.06-carat, off-white, transparent broken aggregate; a 0.83-carat, white-colourless transparent octahedral; and a 0.53-carat, off-white transparent octahedral.

The combined 2013 sample grade for the Kelvin kimberlite is 5.38 carats per tonne.

The company recovered 4.3 tonnes of kimberlite from Kelvin last year containing more than 16,000 micro diamonds, of which 474 are commercial-sized diamonds.

The junior explorer is kicking-off more geophysical work over both kimberlites followed by a drill program in March, including more than 10,000 metres of delineation and exploration drilling, and the extraction of a mini-bulk sample of 25 to 30 tonnes from Kelvin.

Management says it expects to identify a resource along the Kelvin–Faraday kimberlite corridor of 5 million to 8 million tonnes and to identify new kimberlites outside the corridor.

As of December 2013, the company had about $16 million in cash, according to Haywood.

At press time Kennady shares were trading at $5 within a 52-week range of $1 to $8.75 per share. The junior has 23 million shares outstanding.