Kennady Diamonds Inc. is co-recipient of the prestigious Mines and Money Exploration Company of the Year award for 2016, presented during the Mining Journal Outstanding Achievement Awards Gala Dinner at the Mines and Money Conference in London, England on Dec. 1.

Kennady Diamonds received this honor for its work at Kennady North, an advanced diamond exploration project immediately north of Gahcho Kué, a Northwest Territories diamond mine being ramped up to commercial production by De Beers Canada (51 percent) and Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (49 percent).

Upon accepting the award, Kennady Diamonds President and CEO Rory Moore paid tribute to the entire Kennady north team, from founder and former CEO to the camp crew.

"Firstly, the former CEO of Kennady, Patrick Evans had the vision and courage to spin out Kennady from Mountain Province in 2012 and initiate an exploration program on the claims immediately north of the Gahcho Kué mine," said Moore.

"This area had been previously explored and most diamond explorers were skeptical of his chances for success, but this did not deter Patrick who moved ahead boldly." The Kennady North CEO also recognized Aurora Geosciences Ltd., the Yellowknife-based company that has designed and implemented all of the exploration programs that proved skeptics wrong.

"Gary Vivian, the president of Aurora, and Chris Hrkac, senior project manager for the Kennady North project together with their team, deserve the lion's share of credit for the successes that Kennady has enjoyed to date," said Moore.

"Their innovative, systematic and dedicated approach to a technically challenging project has resulted in new and unique discoveries, and earned Aurora the respect of its peers in the industry." This work has identified four kimberlites along a 3,000-meter-long corridor at Kennady North that is on trend and northeast of Gahcho Kué.

In addition to the technical team and camp crews, Moore recognized the importance of the company's loyal investors.

"One will not go far in diamond exploration in the Arctic without strong financial backing and I want to thank all of our shareholders that have supported us along this exciting journey of discovery," he said.

"The fortunate combination of solid financing, creative exploration and visionary leadership has led to the great success of Kennady and its receipt of this award.

We intend to honor this award by moving the company toward further discovery of kimberlites and their advancement into diamond resources at Kennady North." Kennady is currently working toward the finalization of a preliminary economic assessment for its namesake project and, if things continue to look good, the company plans to initiate a feasibility study for building Northwest Territories' next diamond mine at Kennady North in 2017.

Kennady shares this year's Mines and Money Exploration Company of the Year award with co-recipient NexGen Energy, who was recognized for its impressive uranium discoveries in the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan.

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Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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