Diamond Empowerment is a series of articles, each one a case study, providing an objective overview of the contribution – both realized and still only potential – that the diamond mining industry makes to sustainable development in the countries where it is present.
The sixth article in the series at the World Diamond Council (WDC) looks at Canada, and more specifically at the Northwest Territories, where the discovery of diamonds in 1991 changed the area’s future, as it did the trajectory of the diamond industry in general.
At its peak, the diamond industry’s direct contribution to the NWT’s GDP reached as high as 30 percent, although if one factors in associated procurement contracts for diamond mining companies and associated bodies, it has reached as high as 48 percent.
By focussing the big three WDC referred BHP. BHP started collecting environmental data for its NWT diamond project with Dia Met in 1993, and submitted an environmental impact statement to a federally-appointed assessment review panel two years later. The Canadian government gave the green light for development at the Lac de Gras site in November 1996.
Construction began in 1997, and the project was renamed the Ekati Diamond Mine in 1998. It officially opened on October 14 that same year, although open pit operations had begun in August. By 2000, it was already producing 2.77 million carats per annum, and this would rise to 6.85 million carats by 2004.
Ekati marked the entry of BHP into the diamond industry. But the conglomerate would soon be joined in Canada by another major Anglo-Australian natural resource giant, Rio Tinto. The latter, however, was already involved in the diamond industry, as the major shareholder in the Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia.
Rio Tinto’s foray into the fledgling Canadian diamond sector had begun in 1991, through its local exploration arm, Kennecott Canada, which joined the project at Lac de Gras that had been initiated by a Yellowknife-headquartered junior mining operation called Aber Diamond Corporation. By 1995, they had identified four diamond bearing kimberlite pipes.
A formal joint venture agreement was signed by Aber and Rio Tinto, under whose terms Rio Tinto would manage and operate the mine through a wholly-owned subsidiary, Diavik Diamond Mines. Once production began, the diamonds would be shared between Rio Tinto and Aber, with the former receiving 60 percent of revenue.
Diavik’s environmental baseline study was completed in 1997, and a comprehensive environmental agreement was signed with five aboriginal organizations and indigenous governments in the area, together with additional agreements that ensured that local citizens would benefit from the mine’s presence on their land. They all became a part of the license to operate and permission to construct the mine, which was granted in September 2000.
Production at the Diavik Mine began in January 2003, and by 2024 it had produced about 144 million carats.
De Beers had been present in Canada since 1961, when it undertook its first prospecting operation in the country. In 1997, it concluded a joint venture agreement in the NWT with Mountain Province Diamonds, two years after the junior mining company had discovered a kimberlite pipe at Kennady Lake, about 280 kilometers northeast of Yellowknife.
Some 19 years later it would become the Gahcho Kué diamond mine. In 2000, De Beers purchased Winspear Diamonds, which in 1997 had discovered a diamond deposit at Snap Lake, about 85 kilometers from Kennady Lake.
In 2008 Snap Lake opened as Canada’s first all-underground diamond mine, and on September 20, 2016, De Beers began production at Gahcho Kué, which today is considered the world’s largest new diamond mine, with an average annual production of 4.5 million carats.
Snap Lake ceased production in December 2015 and was put into what De Beers called a “care and maintenance” program. The decision to shut down the site completely was taken in 2023, and in 2024 a revegetation and reclamation plan for the site was approved by government authorities.
Between 2008 and 2019, De Beers also operated another Canadian mine. It was the Victor Mine in northern Ontario, and it produced more than 8.2 million carats before being shut down, and an environmental reclamation program successfully concluded.
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