Canandian miner North Arrow Minerals has described the two diamond mine projects in Northern Canada from where it will soon begin bulk sampling of ore as ‘promising’ in a recent update. The two sites are at Qilalugaq and Pikooand are being developed in a 80:20 JV with Stornoway Diamonds.

The samples from the Qilalugaq site are drawn from Q1-4 which is a 12.5-hectare kimberlite. A total of 1,500 tonnes of ore are being processed in Montreal and diamonds are expected to be sent to Antwerp for valuation later this year.

The Qilalugaq project is spread over 7,000 hectares with the Q1-4 pipe estimated to have considerable about 48.8 million tonnes which could yield over 25 million carats of diamonds.

Similarly, the company has been processing 440 Pikoo till samples that were collected earlier this year. The results so far have been positive, according to the company, indicating that there could be multiple diamond bearing kimberlites on the site.  One sample of 209 kg ore yielded 745 diamonds, with 23 of them being ‘commercial-sized’ i.e. greater than 0.85 mm. North Arrow plans to conduct a 3,000 meter drill programme at Pikoo this year at a cost of over $1 million.