Budgets have been approved for a full feasibility study at the Gahcho Kue (Kennady Lake) diamond project in the Northwest Territories, to be operated by De Beers Consolidated Mining on behalf of its joint venture with Mountain Province Diamonds (MPV-T) and Camphor Ventures (CFV-V).
Field work for the feasibility study, which is budgeted at $25 million, is to start in January. The study will be done from a large fly-in camp supplied by Hercules aircraft, rather than by trucks on the Slave winter road.
De Beers plans geotechnical drilling to determine mining constraints, engineering design and environmental baseline studies. The project will need to dewater lakes and further geotechnical study on dewatering will also form part of the program.
Process plant and infrastructure designs will be held off until further work has been done on permitting. Mountain Province said it expected De Beers would come up with similar process designs to those now on the drawing board for the Snap Lake, N.W.T., and Victor, Ont., projects.
De Beers, a subsidiary of Anglo American (AAUK-Q), holds 51%, Mountain Province 44.1%, and Camphor 4.9% of the project.
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