Dominion Diamond Corporation reported recently that sales of the Ekati Diamond Mine and Diavik Diamond Mine for the third fiscal quarter 2017 (August 1, 2016 to October 31, 2016), amounted to US$ 102.7 million for the sale of 1.2 million carats. Sales for the same period of the previous year stood at US$ 145.0 million for 0.8 million carats sold. This represents a decrease of 29% in value terms and an increase by 56% in terms of carats sold, y-o-y. The Company attributed this mainly to two factors: “the process plant fire at the Ekati Diamond Mine, which resulted in a reduction in the value of goods available for sale in the quarter, and the carryover of lower average value goods from both the Ekati and Diavik Diamond Mines in the second quarter of fiscal 2017 for sale in the current period”.
Of the total figures, Ekati (100% basis) rough sales touched US$ 54.8 million for 527,000 carats sold for Q3 fiscal 2017 (US$ 88.2 for 480,000 carats in Q3 fiscal 2016); and Diavik (40% basis) rough sales for the current period amounted to US$ 47.9 million for the sale of 715,000 carats (US$ 56.8 million for the sale of 315,000 carats for Q3 fiscal 2016).
Dominion noted that US$ 9.3 million from the sale of 61,000 carats from the processing of material from the Misery Main open pit produced during the pre-commercial production period is excluded from the Ekati sales recorded in the third fiscal quarter of 2017; as well as US$ 1.8 million from the sale of 30,000 carats from the processing of material from the Misery Northeast pipe produced during the pre-commercial production period.
Reporting Ekati production (100% basis), the Company announced that for the period under review, the Ekati Diamond Mine recovered 1.0 million carats from 0.4 million tonnes of ore processed as against 0.8 million carats recovered from 0.9 million tonnes processed in Q3 fiscal 2016.
“During the quarter, tonnes of ore processed were significantly reduced as a result of the fire at the Ekati process plant that occurred on June 23, 2016 and the subsequent shutdown of the process plant,” the Company revealed. “The Ekati process plant resumed operations at full capacity on September 21, 2016 and prioritized processing of higher value ore from Misery Main open pit and Koala underground operations.”
News Source : gjepc.org
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