From: "jawz_2020"
Shore Dazzles Geologists: Quality of Diamonds Impresses Investors
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:59:44 +0000
These diamonds came from 1-12 miles away from the huge cmkx mushroom
oreo kimberlight pipe!
from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix TODAY, Dec 2, 2004:
tinyurl.com/3zmfs Shore dazzles geologists
Quality of diamonds impresses investors
Murray Lyons The StarPhoenix
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Shore Gold Inc. caused a stir in the final hour of the annual
geological show at the Delta Bessborough on Wednesday by showing off
a parcel of its rough diamonds extracted during the past year
through its bulk mining program in the Fort a la Corne forest.
The sparkle in the diamonds on display impressed local investors and
brokers who have followed Shore, the Saskatoon company that now
trades on the TSX big board.
The quality of the gems also caught the eye an experienced diamond
geologist from rival Montreal company Forest Gate Resources, which
has an exploration program in a much earlier stage of development
underway in the forest about 70 kilometres east of Prince Albert.
Pieter duPlessis, a South African geologist and former De Beers
employee, was impressed by what he saw displayed from Shore's bulk
sample. He says he thinks the "speculative" carat value estimate of
$125 US provided by Shore's head geologist is close to the mark.
George Read, the vice-president of exploration for Shore, who is
also a South Africa-trained diamond geologist, told fellow
geologists that based on $125 US a carat and a grade of just 15
carats per hundred tonnes, Shore's Star kimberlite formation could
produce revenue of about $18 US a tonne. He says that revenue per
tonne would be the same as or better than some of the large
kimberlite formations in Africa and Australia.
He says it appears 75 per cent of the diamonds recovered are "white
goods," which are gem-quality diamonds.
Canada's two operating diamond mines in the Slave Lake area of the
Northwest Territories are much higher grade than Saskatchewan
kimberlites, but Read points out that the costs to mine there are
enormous.
Read says the next mine in the North -- the Jericho mine -- will see
electricity costs alone of $7 a tonne because of the need to have
diesel generators. He says the total operating cost per tonne of an
open pit mine in Fort a la Corne, including the capital costs, would
probably range from $6 to $8 a tonne.
Read told geologists that the percentage of white stones and large
carat stones is quite high within the 20,734 diamonds recovered so
far in the Shore bulk mining program.
DuPlessis, the Forest Gate geologist, agreed.
"The proportion of whites to stones with a lot of inclusions is
excellent," he said.
"They are mostly whites and good quality stones. Compared to a lot
of the diamonds that I've seen, the quality looks very good."
Inclusions are foreign material in the diamond that can make it look
cloudy.
The Shore show-and-tell, held after Saskatchewan geologists finished
their annual meeting Wednesday, proved interesting to Jim Murphy, a
broker with RBC Dominion in Saskatoon.
Murphy was a mining employee with the former Uranerz uranium mining
company that did kimberlite exploration in Fort a la Corne in the
late 1980s and proved there were huge kimberlites in the forest.
Cameco Corp., which took over Uranerz, still has a share in the Fort
a la Corne joint venture operated by De Beers Canada, which is the
neighbouring project to Shore's.
Murphy says many Saskatchewan clients of RBC are followers of the
diamond play and have faith the forest will yield a working diamond
mine in the future. Most of these investors stick with the company
and aren't jumping in and out of the stock, he added.
Read says the company should be able to report its carat values in
January, when an independent valuation of the approximate 2,500
carats worth of stones recovered is complete.
Geologists who gave a detailed presentation of how the Fort a la
Corne kimberlites came to be point out that the sand cover over top
of the formation is extremely fortunate in that it has prevented the
kimberlites from being worn away.
Read says science now accepts that kimberlite itself was just a
vehicle to transport the stones from the Earth's mantle and didn't
create the stones. He says the Fort a la Corne diamonds are probably
about 3.2 billion years old and they came to the surface with the
kimberlite volcanic eruption about 100 million years ago.
The 250-hectare surface area of Shore's Star kimberlite is among the
largest in the world and Read says the good news is that it appears
about 80 per cent of the kimberlite is classified as coming from the
early Joli Fou kimberlite formation.
"Most of the body is the material we would want to mine and even the
lower grade material is probably economic through some form of ore
blending," he said.
Geologists also heard from Andrew Williams of De Beers Canada who is
project manager for the Fort a la Corne joint venture with
Vancouver's Kensington Resources Ltd. That project's kimberlite
140/141 adjoins the Star kimberlite. Williams says nearly $8 million
was spent on drilling out large diameter bulk and smaller core
samples to find out where the richest spots are in the joint venture
kimberlites.
He says the view of De Beers at the moment is that the grade within
each of the kimberlites alone is not enough to develop a mineable
resource, but that the high grade portions of two or three nearby
kimberlites, taken together, could form a resource that would
justify a mine.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2004
____________________________________________________________________
CMKX HGAS BEEN DRILLING AT THE SUPER-SIZED MUSHROOM OREO FOR FOUR
MONTHS NOW, SINCE EARLY AUGUST 2004.
IT IS about 10-12 MILES FROM THE SHORE STAR DIAMOND SITE
THERE HAS BEEN ENOUGH TIME TIME TO GET LAB RESULTS BACK FROM CORE
SAMPLES TAKEN TO THE LAB AS LATE AS SEPT IMHO.
AS SOON AS THE SHARE STRUCTURE IS REPAIRED, THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY
HUGE NEWS IMHO
THE QUALITY OF CMKX DIAMONDS FORM THE MUSHROOM OREO WILL BE AT LEAST
AS GOOD AS THESE JUST 10-12 MILES AWAY IMHO - IF NOT BETTER!
ON THE MAP BELOW, NOTE THAT THE CMKX SITE IS ON A STRAIGHT LINE
STARATING FROM SHORE'S STAR DIAMOND, THROUGH KENNSINGTON'S 122 SITE,
AND ON TO THE MUSHROOM OREO - ALL ON A STRAIGHT LINE!!
CMKX Drill Site (Aug-Sept ) @ an OREO possibly as large as 8 x 5
Miles
13 Sept news indicated drill moved 1.5 miles on 9-11-04 to find
center of pipe
questfordiamonds.com/research/topic5a.htm Bel$$ing$,
jawz_2020
Owner
