The companies are 50-50 partners in the 684,000-acre Jericho project in the Northwest Territories, 400 km northeast of Yellowknife. The project centres on the JD-01 and 03 pipes, plus the newly discovered Contwoyto-1 kimberlite.
JD-01 is a land-based kimberlite pipe that, according to consulting firm Steffen, Robertson and Kirsten (SRK), contains a resource of about 6.1 million tonnes grading 0.94 carat per tonne, based on a cutoff size of 1 mm.
A prefeasibility study by SRK determined a minable, open-pit resource of 3.8 million tonnes grading 1.01 carats per tonne, with a projected stripping ratio of 4.2-to-1. The JD-01 diamonds are reported to be worth an average of US$60 per carat, giving an implied value of US$60.60 per tonne.
The JD-03 pipe lies under a small lake 7 km west of JD-01 and is estimated by the partners to contain a preliminary resource of 10.5 million tonnes to a depth of 300 metres. Three test samples weighing a total of 47.3 tonnes have yielded 16.9 carats of diamonds, for an overall grade of 0.36 carat per tonne.
The Contwoyto-1 kimberlite was discovered during the fall 1998 exploration program, 30 km east of the Jericho pipes in the vicinity of an indicator mineral train where diamondiferous kimberlite float was found. The second hole of an 8-hole, 1,100-metre drill program targeting high-priority land-based targets intersected 92.6 metres of kimberlite, starting at a downhole depth of 54.7 metres. The hole was drilled at an angle of minus 45.
Caustic fusion analysis yielded 169 stones from a 90.2-kg sample of core. Twenty-six of the diamonds measure greater than 0.5 mm in one dimension, 12 exceed 0.5 mm in two dimensions, and one measures greater than 1 mm in two dimensions.
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