TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Explorer Kennady Diamonds on Monday said diamonds recovered from the 2013 summer drill programme at its Kennady North project, located in Canada's Northwest Territories, had confirmed that the Kelvin kimberlite had a coarse diamond size distribution and the potential to host a high-grade diamond resource.

The company, which was in 2012 spun out of New York- and Toronto-listed Mountain Province Diamonds, said the results for the first seven batches, totalling 1 527 kg, or about 40% of the 3 454 kg bulk sample, returned a sample grade of 5.37 ct/t.

Bulk-sample testing were currently under way at the Geoanalytical Laboratories Diamond Services, at the Saskatchewan Research Council, which is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard by the Standards Council of Canada as a testing laboratory for diamond analysis using caustic fusion.

The kimberlite was recovered from 21 holes drilled at the north-west lobe of the Kelvin kimberlite, and for processing purposes, the kimberlite had been divided into 15 batches, each weighing about 220 kg.

"A sample grade of 5.37 ct/t is outstanding. The 2013 winter drill programme returned an exceptional Kelvin sample grade of 8.13 ct/t, which included an extraordinary 2.48 ct diamond. Adjusting for the impact of the 2.48 ct diamond, there is a remarkable similarity between the 2013 winter sample grade and the sample grade of the first seven batches recovered from the 2013 summer programme,” Kennady Diamonds CEO Patrick Evans said.

A total of 154 commercial size diamonds were extracted from a 1 527 kg sample, and by comparison, 110 commercial size diamonds were recovered from about 1 000 kg from the Kelvin 2013 winter drill programme. This illustrated a high degree of consistency between the samples of about one commercial size diamond for every 10 kg of kimberlite.

While the 154 commercial size diamonds from the first seven batches have been recovered from the North-west lobe of the Kelvin kimberlite, the 110 commercial size diamonds recovered from the 2013 winter programme came from sixteen different drill holes across the 1 km strike of the Kelvin kimberlite.

Based on this, it was apparent that the Kelvin kimberlite hosts commercial size diamonds across the length and breadth of the kimberlite, rather than being concentrated in particular areas, the explorer said.

Evans added that in addition to the outstanding sample grade of the first seven batches, it was  encouraging to see the presence of two high-quality macro diamonds without any inclusions. “Grade and diamond quality are key value drivers."

Following the successful conclusion of the 2013 summer drill programme, Kennady Diamonds was now preparing for the 2014 winter exploration programme. More geophysic surveys over the Kelvin and Faraday kimberlites, as well as new exploration targets outside of the Kelvin - Faraday kimberlite corridor, was scheduled to start in February 2014.

This would be followed in March 2014 by a much expanded drill programme, including more than 10 000 m of delineation and exploration drilling and extracting a mini-bulk sample of about 25 t to 30 t from the Kelvin kimberlite.

The 2014 winter programme was expected to be complete by May, with the results expected to be announced in the third quarter of 2014.

The company planned to publish a maiden resource statement for the Kennady North project during the fourth quarter of 2014.

The results for the remaining eight batches were expected within the next two to three weeks.

The junior company’s TSX-V-listed shares had appreciated 590.83% in the past six months, and on Monday traded at C$7.85 apiece.