Quebec miner Stornoway Diamonds on Tuesday announced that it would suspend openpit mining operations at Renard 65, but the move is not expected to impact on its revenue for this year.
The company, which transitioned the Renard mine to primarily underground operations in August last year, explained that the current ore stockpiles at Renard 65 were sufficient to maintain its planned contribution to the process plant until the second quarter of 2020.
The Renard 65 openpit only accounts for about 6% of the mill feed, with 89% of the feed deriving from the Renard 2 underground mine and 5% from the Renard underground development.
The announcement was contained in Stornoway’s first-quarter production and sales results.
Although the company sold more diamonds than in the preceding quarter, at 429 506 ct for gross proceeds of C$47-million, it recovered fewer carats, mainly owing to mechanical issues at the front-end of the process pant.
First-quarter diamond production fell by 8% quarter-on-quarter to 444 562 ct, from the processing of 582 613 t of ore. The miner said that the mechanical issues were the result of very cold weather in January and February, and that the process plant had surpassed its budgeted daily rate with an average of 7 209 t/d in March.
Commenting on the sales, president and CEO Patrick Godin said that Stornoway sold more diamonds in the first quarter, as the last three months of 2018 was the first full quarter of underground operations.
He also reported an increase in its average pricing to C$83/t, or $110/ct, but said that the rough diamond market had not shown a notable improvement from the fourth quarter.