North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. Jan. 25 announced that it received US$25 million (C$31.5 million) from the sale of 181,851 carats of diamonds recovered from the Gahcho Kué Mine in Northwest Territories.

The US$137 (C$173) per carat average value for the diamonds in the Jan. 21 sale in Antwerp, Belgium, is 84% higher than the average price of US$75 million (C$94) per carat that Mountain Province realized for the 3.3 million carats of diamonds the company sold during 2020.

"With the strengthening in the rough diamond market that we saw throughout 2021, we expected the results of the first sale of the year to be favorable," said Mountain Province Diamonds President and CEO Mark Wall. "These sales results put us on a solid footing as we head into a pivotal year."

Owned under a joint venture between Mountain Province (49%) and De Beers Canada Inc (51%), Gahcho Kué is the newest of the three large diamond mines in Northwest Territories. Having reached commercial production in 2017, this operation has spent 40% of its operational life navigating a global pandemic that has impacted the diamond sector harder than the wider mining industry.

At the end of 2021, the mine owners announced a COVID outbreak at Gahcho Kué that triggered the implementation of heightened preventative measures on-site. Since that time, additional COVID cases have been detected at the diamond mine, which has had some impact on production due to quarantine requirements.

Mountain Province has issued its 2022 guidance for Gahcho Kué that reflects the production and capital costs associated with managing COVID-19 at the remote northern mine.

The company expects the Gahcho Kué Mine to produce 6.3 million to 6.7 million carats of diamond during 2022 at an average cost of US$50 to US$54 (C$64 to C$68) per carat recovered.

"The company's 2022 guidance demonstrates that despite the risks, impacts and costs associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the mine continues to generate positive free cash flow, enhanced further by the strong rough diamond market," said Wall.

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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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