Leading Canadian diamond exploration and development company Stornoway Diamond Corporation has announced that recent optimization in plant design at the Renard Diamond Project has added a large diamond recovery capacity to plant. The change has been carried out at no additional net capital cost while maintaining existing ore processing capacity of 2.2 mn tonnes per annum.

The modified plant design that will be built contemplates the recovery of diamonds up to 45 mm in diameter (equivalent to a 600 carat round octahedral stone), with a corresponding direct capital cost estimate of C$147.1m.

Matt Manson, President and CEO, commented: “These plant design optimizations that we will implement at Renard will allow us to recover the potential value upside from large diamonds that is a characteristic feature of the project.

“The most recent valuation of Renard’s diamond samples, conducted in March 2014 by WWW International Diamond Consultants Ltd., indicated a weighted average of value of US$190/carat for the three kimberlites in the project’s Mineral Reserve, and US$197/carat for Renard 2, which represents 82% of production in the first 11 years.

“The size distribution of samples collected at Renard 2 suggest the potential to recover approximately 3 to 6 stones between 50ct and 100ct in size, and 1 to 2 stones greater than 100ct in size, every 100,000 carats (representing 2 to 3 weeks of output at full production).”

Renard Diamond Project is located in north-central Québec. Construction at the site commenced in July 2014 and first ore is expected to be delivered in the second half of 2016. Commercial production is scheduled for the 2nd quarter of 2017.