Name of the Project
Star-Orion South diamond project.

Location
The Fort à la Corne diamond district of central Saskatchewan, in Canada.

Project Owner/s
Star Diamond Corp.

Project Description
A preliminary economic assessment (PEA) has determined that an estimated 66-million carats of diamonds could be recovered from a surface mine over a 34-year life-of-mine.

The PEA envisages the development of two openpits, initially Orion South, followed by Star, using conventional openpit methods.

Conventional hydraulic excavators and haul trucks create a starting “key” for three bucket wheel excavators to remove the sand and clay overburden from the kimberlite. Conveyor belts will transfer the sand and clay from the excavators to the nearby overburden waste area. The exposed kimberlite will be lightly blasted and conventional hydraulic shovels will load the rock into trucks. These trucks will transfer the rock to an in-pit feeder and the kimberlite will be delivered to the processing plant using a conveyor belt.

The processing facility will have the capacity to process 45 000 t/d of kimberlite using autogenous milling, followed by screening, X-ray transmission diamond recovery and dense-media separation of heavy mineral concentrate.

The recovery section will use X-ray technology, with grease as the scavenging technology to recover the low-luminescence diamonds. The diamonds will be sorted into parcels in the on-site sorting facility.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Net Present Value/Internal Rate of Return
The project has an after-tax net present value, at a 7% discount rate, of $2-billion and an internal rate of return of 19%, with a payback of 3.5 years after the start of construction.

Capital Expenditure
Preproduction capital expenditure is estimated $1.41-billion.

Planned Start /End Date
Not stated.

Latest Developments
Star Diamond, which is involved in a legal wrangle with Rio Tinto Canada with regard to the Star-Orion South project, says it has received a notice from Rio Tinto calling for a meeting to seek approval of a proposed budget for the project.

According to Star Diamond, Rio Tinto Canada has indicated that it has set a budget for June 2021 to March 2022 of C$17.8-million, and that it will seek to add another C$64.4-million of its expenses from 2019 to May 2021 to that budget.

Star Diamond continues to believe that no joint venture (JV) has been formed with Rio Tinto Canada under the option to JV agreement dated June 2017, which forms the basis of a legal case currently in the Court of Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan.

The court has not yet released is decision and Star Diamond has said that it will wait for the decision before it responds to Rio Tinto Canada’s notice of a meeting.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
SGS Canada, DRA Americas and ENGCOMP Engineering and Computing Professionals (PEA).

Contact Details for Project Information
Star Diamond Corp, tel +1 306 664 2202 or email stardiamondcorp@stardiamondcorp.com.