Engineering & Mining Journal

SEP 2017

Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr

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DIAMOND MINING 66 E&MJ; • SEPTEMBER 2017 www.e-mj.com venture. Conversely, De Beers recent- ly walked away from its own seven-year, US$15.8 million option agreement with CanAlaska Uranium in the West Athabas- ca region of the province, having failed to identify any kimberlite at targets identified from airborne magnetic surveys. And in July, Dominion Diamond Corp. (formerly Harry Winston Diamond Corp., formerly Aber Diamond Corp.), which has a 40% stake in Diavik with Rio Tinto and owns 80% of Ekati, agreed to a US$1.2 billion takeover by privately owned, U.S.- based The Washington Cos. The new own- ers have said they plan to invest in the Jay and Fox Deep projects at Ekati, and in new greenfield exploration. Crystal Gazing In the most recent edition of its diamond industry report, Bain & Co. suggested that in value terms, measured in constant dol- lars, global demand is likely to grow at a rate of between 2% and 5% annually in the period up to 2030. Against that, the company believes that "the global supply of rough diamonds will decline by an average of 1% to 2% per year from 2016 to 2030 because of the aging and depletion of existing mines." This decline will be offset to a certain extent by new mines coming on stream which, the report suggested, could add as much as 26 million ct/y up to 2026, then tail off to around 16 million ct/y after that. All in all, plans announced by producers indicate an increase of rough diamond production to about 150 million ct/y by 2019, with output then falling back to 110 mil- lion ct/y by 2030. The one constant in the company's estimates is Alrosa, which, it predicts, will maintain current levels of production right through the next decade and beyond. Rio Tinto and De Beers will also maintain their respective production levels un- til the late 2020s unless either can develop new capacity. The slide will come more from the small players, which typically have smaller, shorter-life resources. In the end, for gem diamond sales it all comes down to con- sumers' willingness and ability to spend money on jewelry. As the report noted, "A continued source of both concern and op- portunity is the question of long-term demand for natural dia- monds. As a new generation of consumers — the millennials — heads toward its prime spending years, the industry needs to find ways to effectively engage with them." Exploration core drilling is just one end-use for industrial diamonds. Natural stones, while comprising around 70% of production, now account for only 1% of annual industrial diamond demand, with China by far the world's biggest producer of synthetics. (Atlas Copco bits on the left and Roschen NQ wireline core bits on the right.) Conveyor structure at Lucara Diamond Corp.'s Karowe mine in Botswana, which it commissioned in 2012. The company is currently installing four more Tomra X-ray Transmission diamond-recovery units, having already used the technology very successfully to recover large stones.

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