By John Curran

A team of Nunavut diamond explorers was honoured this year with the prestigious Bill Dennis Award from the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada. 

This year’s winners were Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. and BHP – the team that is credited with discovering the Chidliak diamond district on Baffin Island, Nunavut. 

Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. discovered the first kimberlites in the Chidliak district in 2008. By the time De Beers Canada acquired the junior a decade later, 74 kimberlites had been discovered and a positive preliminary economic assessment (PEA) had been released showing that two of the kimberlites could support an operation producing 16.7 million carats over a 13-year mine life.

In the early 2000s, BHP Billiton focused its efforts on southern Baffin Island as a prospective area for diamond exploration. Although most age-dating information suggested that the basement geology was not ideal to host economic diamond deposits, exploration manager Geoff Woad was skeptical of the studies and felt strongly that BHP should target the region. Looking to leverage its diamond exploration spending, BHP formed a strategic alliance with Peregrine to explore Baffin Island for diamonds and metals. After conducting a jointly-funded regional sampling program in 2005, enough kimberlite indicator minerals (KIMs) were recovered to justify a follow-up program.

In 2006, Peregrine took responsibility for sole funding, operating and property acquisition, leaving BHP with certain back-in rights. After a successful 2006 follow-up program the first claims were acquired in early 2007. The field program confirmed high diamond potential on the property. Chairman Eric Friedland kept the funding taps flowing during this period, while President Brooke Clements prioritized the project over all others in the junior’s stable.By 2008, glacial till sampling had sufficiently outlined a target area where Peregrine initiated the first airborne geophysical survey. The diligent field crew combined geophysical interpretation and prospecting to identify the first three kimberlites at Chidliak on a real-time basis. The first kimberlite yielded a two carat gem quality diamond that same year. 

Encouraged by the finds in 2008, BHP exercised its back-in rights to acquire a joint-venture interest and funded exploration programs for the next three years resulting in a rapid pace of kimberlite discovery. When BHP decided to exit the diamond business in 2011, Peregrine purchased their entire 51 per cent interest in the project for $9 million. Peregrine also purchased BHP’s 2 per cent retained royalty. 

Persistent, methodical exploration paid off and by 2016 Peregrine had discovered a total of 74 kimberlites, the majority of which are diamondiferous. Named for a former president of the association, the Bill Dennis Award annually honours an individual or team of explorers who have accomplished one or both of the following: made a significant mineral discovery; made an important contribution to the prospecting and/or exploration industry.

by John Curran

Those working in or close to mining and their families understand, the industry has gone well beyond righting the issues of the past and is already at the forefront of sustainability. Despite this, mining has an image problem in terms of the public’s perception of its impacts on communities and the environment. It’s a challenge De Beers and its corporate parent Anglo American are poised to attack head on. Anglo owns 85 per cent of the diamond miner with the government of Botswana owning the other 15 per cent.

“In this world of rapid, powerful change, the world belongs to those who can redefine it and – in mining – today’s pioneers are tomorrow’s winners,” states Anglo American’s website. “That’s why we have set out our innovation-led approach to sustainable mining – FutureSmart Mining. It applies innovative thinking and technological advances to address mining’s major challenges.” In Nunavut, FutureSmart Mining is being applied for the first time anywhere in the world on the Chidliak project. “From an Anglo American point of view, we would like to improve our mining image. The world is moving on and the expectations about what a mining project looks like and the impact on the environment and communities is evolving,” former De Beers Canada CEO Kim Truter said in an interview with the Northern Miner.

“It’s very important to us that we now start setting ourselves apart by building mines that have a much smaller footprint and embrace some of the technologies that either currently exist or are emerging so we can change how we operate, we can change our footprint on the environment, we can offer a different value proposition for communities and government, and we can offer a different value proposition for employees, including things like working remotely.”

Clean energy is also key to the FutureSmart attitude. Obviously that goes hand-in-hand with conservation and shrinking the overall project footprint, but also extends to working with governments to address joint infrastructure needs. That includes both energy and data transmission requirements, Truter added. Based on previous owner Peregrine’s positive preliminary economic assessment, which looked at developing only two pipes, the CH-6 and CH-7 kimberlites, current resources could support a mine producing 16.7 million carats over
13 years.

“For us to have sole ownership of those 74 kimberlite pipes gives us a very good opportunity to find the model where we can try to develop as many of those pipes as possible,” Truter continued. “That will take some different thinking as we think about things like a mining method that is scalable and reproducible and something we can potentially move from one pipe to the next.”

PDAC Distinguished Service Award – Don Bubar, Avalon 
Don Bubar, President CEO of Avalon Advanced Minerals, received the 2019 PDAC Distinguished Service Award. During his 40-year career as a geoscientist, he has contributed to successful exploration in Canada, and been a leading advocate for geoscience education and forged a better, more productive relationship between Indigenous groups and the minerals industry. As founder and head of the PDAC’s Aboriginal Affairs committee, he recognized the urgent need to bring these two groups together in dialogue about how exploration and mine development could support local communities through training, jobs, and business development. 

Eberhard Scherkus named to Canadian Mining Hall of Fame 
Eberhard Scherkus is among the newest members of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. Geologist and professional engineer, Scherkus developed the Meadowbank gold project, Agnico Eagle’s first Arctic mine. He joined Agnico as a project manager in 1985, became chief operating officer in 1998, and was president and COO from 2005 until retiring in 2012. He transformed Agnico Eagle from a regional single-mine company into a top-performing global gold producer, with nine mines in Canada, Finland and Mexico. Northern Miner, Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, Mining Association of Canada, and Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada are hall of fame sponsors.