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Strategies & Market Trends : Dino's Bar & Grill -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Goose94 who wrote (56159)	5/12/2019 5:38:05 AM
From: Goose94	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 202923

Star Diamond (DIAM-T)Mr. Read, senior vice-president, says that Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc., the company's co-venturer at the Fort a la Corne diamond project in central Saskatchewan, "has initiated field activities and programs on several fronts." In other words, there are finally signs of activity after Rio abruptly called off the first deep trench at the Star kimberlite last fall before reaching the top of the kimberlite. Mr. Read says that Rio Tinto has resumed the cutter soil mixing program in which it sets in place a hard cap atop each site where the big Bauer trench cutter will subsequently dig its holes to collect a bulk sample of the pipe. Five of the 10 sites at Star had been prepared last year ahead of the trenching; the rest could be completed in a few weeks if all goes well. Mr. Read does not say so, but the cutter soil mixing would presumably move to the Orion South kimberlite, where the two companies are planning 20 deep trenches to bulk sample that huge pipe. Mr. Read says that a 980-square-metre heated storage building is now complete. It will contain the sampled kimberlite produced by the big Bauer rig while it awaits processing in the nearby processing plant. That plant, which was built in South Africa in modular components, will be assembled now that the foundations for the facility have been completed. Mr. Read does not offer a target date for the plant being ready, probably because assembling modular plants typically take about three or four months. That could mean a further wait, as the partners previously said that the Bauer rig would get to work once the plant was complete. The processing plant, which will also have to be commissioned with test rock before the sample processing formally starts, has modern components and processing flowsheet to ensure that any large diamonds are recovered with minimal breakage. Large up to 25 millimetres in size, that is, a limit that could accommodate diamonds weighing 100 carats, or perhaps more if their shape was favourable. That should be large enough for the range of gems expected from a combined sample of perhaps 40,000 tonnes of kimberlite, although if by chance a 1,000-carat behemoth was lurking in the sampled rock, it would be shattered to shards. Undoubtedly aware that Star's faithful retail shareholders are eager to hear when the sampling will start, Mr. Read nevertheless obfuscates the timeline: He says only that his company is encouraged by the level of activity on site and the pace at which tasks are being completed in preparation for the big new test of Star. (Orion South was conspicuously absent in his descriptions.) Rio Tinto can earn a 55-per-cent interest by completing the 30 holes, 10 at Star and 20 at Orion South. Star is expected to produce slightly better grades and diamond values than Orion South, although the test is targeting the same dominant phase of kimberlite in both pipes, the dominant Early Joli Fou kimberlite that has the better grades and sufficient diamond values to make it the most valuable kimberlite in the mammoth project. If the test of Star passes muster, Rio Tinto would presumably press onward to Orion South, hopefully this year, which would allow it to start the final feasibility study of the project several years ahead of the 2024 deadline. (The possibility that either Star or Orion South fails to impress Rio Tinto is something that neither Star nor its backers want to consider.) by Will Purcell