Mr. Wayne Isaacs
President & COO
Ekati Diamond Mines (BHP Billiton)

Mr. Wayne Isaacs has over 25 years of diversified mining experience in the United States, Canada and Australia. Wayne has a BSc in Civil Engineering Technology from the University of Southern Illinois; a BSc in Mining Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla; and MSc in Mining Engineering from the University of Southern Illinois. Wayne also completed an Executive Development Program from Northwest University in Evanston Illinois.

He has substantial experience in underground mining with positions held ranging from underground labourer to Vice-President of Operations for Peabody Coal Company, the world's largest non-government owned coal company. Wayne served as President of BHP Billiton's Illawarra Coal group in Wollongong in New South Wales Australia from 1999 to 2003. Wayne was also Chairman of the Port Kembla Coal Terminal. Wayne joined the EKATI Diamond Mine as President and COO in January 2004 and is a Director of the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines.

Canadian Mining Goes Underground

The EKATI Diamond Mine was Canada's first diamond mine. Initial production came from the first open pit mine, known as Panda. Now it is a diverse and complex operation running several open pits and now underground operations as well. At EKATI the mining of the high grade and quality Panda and Koala pipes by open cut methods has reached its economic limits.

Production is currently scheduled out to 2015, with the majority of the ore from open cut mining at the Fox, Sable and Pigeon developments, which however do not have the grade or overall diamond value of Panda and Koala. Therefore, to a large extent the future success of EKATI will be determined by how economically the remaining Kimberlite "roots" can be extracted using underground mining methods. The concept of using underground methods in EKATI has been contemplated since early on. However, as no experience with mining kimberlites by underground methods in the Arctic was available, a test mine was developed and successfully operated for almost two years thus giving us the confidence that larger pipes could be economically and efficiently mined by underground methods.

In April of last year approval was granted by the BHP-Billiton Board to develop the first large scale underground mine at EKATI. The feasibility of EKATI's second underground mine in the Koala pipe is also being explored.

Other mines in Canada are in various stages of studying the feasibility of underground exploration. The shift to more underground mining operations in the diamond industry is not unique to Canada. It is also being discussed in Argyle and Russia.