Star Diamond Corporation provide a review of the work completed by Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. (RTEC) on the Fort à la Corne Project (FalC Project). From June 2017 until June 2022, RTEC pursued extensive exploration and evaluation analysis on two fronts at the FalC Project.
The successful completion and calibration of a trench cutter bulk sampling and macrodiamonds recovery program on Star Kimberlite, with a view to expand this program to the Orion South Kimberlite; and a separate team of RTEC geologists conducted the Orbit exploration program, with the aim of prioritizing the diamond prospectivity of all the other kimberlites that make up the FalC Project.
Rio Tinto’s studies suggest,
1: The continuous and sequential mining of diamonds from Orion South, Star and Orion North over A period of seventy years;
2: The ability to maintain stable pit slopes in the Fort à la Corne Kimberlites through the use of wall buttressing and dewatering.
Analysis produced by Rio Tinto estimates that, based on the currently available Size Frequency Distribution (SFD) for the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) kimberlite within the Star Kimberlite, a 222,000 tonne sample of the EJF is likely to yield 101 Specials (+10.8 carats) and one Exceptional diamond (+100 carats); and RTEC confirmed that the TC EJF diamond parcel contained a significant proportion of Type IIa diamonds (29% Type IIa +9 DTC).
The Bulk Sampling Plant included a modern diamond recovery flow sheet with a Tomra XRT sorter to recover diamonds between 6.0 and 25.0mm and a narrow range Dense Media Separator to recover the small diamonds between 1.0 and 6.0mm. The BSP also included High Pressure Grinding Rolls to ensure liberation of +1.0mm diamonds from the +6.0-25.0mm waste from the XRT sorter.
