Re: Ekati Diamond Discovery

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NorthLion

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Re: Ekati Diamond Discovery

in response to

Why are Indicator Minerals Important???

Mktanalyst411

posted on Oct 21, 2007 04:35PM

Thanks MktAnalyst for the posts.....I did a little more hunting on Ekati and found the websites below interesting. The parallels between Ekati and SNO are intriguing.

Location - http://ekati.bhpbilliton.com/about_e...

Discovery - http://ekati.bhpbilliton.com/common/...

Operations - http://ekati.bhpbilliton.com/operati...

To date 150 kimberlites have been discovered on the claim block. The current mine plan envisages mining a number of kimberlite pipes (Panda, Misery, Koala, Koala North, Fox, Beartooth, Sable and Pigeon). The EKATI Diamond Mine is both an open pit and underground diamond mine. Panda and Koala will be mined by underground methods and Koala North was a test underground mine.

Mining and processing activities are continuous, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. EKATI has a mining fleet worth about C$140 million on site.

Processing

Mined ore is crushed, scrubbed and ground to release diamonds from the surrounding kimblerlite. Diamonds are then separated from non-diamond material through a series of x-ray sorters.

The process follows a step-by-step procedure:

Crushing

The primary crusher reduces ore to a maximum size of 300 millimetres, then a water-flushed cone crusher reduces the coarse ore to 75 millimetres. A high-pressure grinding roll (HPGR) is used to create fines (less than one millimetre), liberate diamonds and break ore down to a maximum top size of 25 millimetres.

Scrubbing

Primary and secondary scrubbers, and degritting and desanding sections remove fine waste material (less than one millimetre) for disposal.

Heavy medium separation

Heavy medium separation (HMS) using a slurry of water and ferrosilicon is used to separate a heavy mineral concentrate from the crushed (-25 +1 millimetre) ore.

X-ray recovery

X-ray sorters are used to extract diamonds from the HMS concentrate. Diamonds luminesce when irradiated with x-rays.