Metalex recovers more diamonds from T1 kimberlite

Vancouver — A total of 243 diamonds has been recovered from a recent hole drilled by Metalex Ventures (MTX-V, MLXVF-O) to further test the T1 kimberlite pipe at the company’s 92%-owned Kyle Lake project in northern Ontario.

The T1 pipe measures about 4 hectares in size and is the most advanced target defined to date on the Kyle Lake property, which is situated about 80 km west of the Victor diamond project being developed by De Beers.

The latest batch of diamonds from the T1 pipe was recovered from 190.49 kg of core drilled to determine its northern boundary. The hole intersected kimberlite from 260 to 291 metres.

Metalex notes that the latest results equate to 127 diamonds per 100 kg — much higher than the average of 19.4 diamonds per 100 kg reported earlier this year from 1,745 kg of kimberlite and the 73 diamonds per 100 kg reported from 45 kg of kimberlite in June 2005.

A total of 29 diamonds were recovered from sieve sizes greater than 0.425 mm and up to 1.18 mm. Two high-chrome G10 garnets and eight other G10 peridotitic garnets were also recovered, along with numerous grains of diamond stability field chromite.

Metalex reported earlier this year that it was encouraged by the quality and high proportion (73.7%) of white diamonds recovered from T1. A drill program to collect a 200-tonne sample from the kimberlite pipe began in early April.

The Kyle Lake project is reported to host 94 other “high-priority” targets that warrant future testing. The remaining interest in the project is held by Arctic Star Diamond (ADD-V, ASDZF-O).

Metalex has other diamond and mineral projects in Canada and elsewhere, including Angola, Greenland, Morocco and Mali. In Greenland, chairman Charles Fipke led efforts to stake ground previously explored by Dia Met Minerals, a diamond company he co-founded in the 1980s. The Greenland ground was relinquished after Dia Met was acquired by its partner at the Ekati diamond mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories.