TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian precious gem producer Dominion Diamond Corp on Tuesday said output from its two producing mines, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, was “substantially ahead of plan” owing to higher-than-expected grades and boosted by operational improvements.

The Toronto-based miner explained that its Ekati process plant improvements executed over the last ten months had resulted in lifting the recovered grade by about 15% during the first half of the year ended July 31, and that process plant improvements were ongoing.

At Diavik, which it jointly owns with 60%-stakeholder Rio Tinto, ore processing averaged 29% ahead of plan during the three-month period and 23% ahead of plan for the first half of the company’s financial year, mainly owing to improved mining rates and equipment availability.

For the quarter, Dominion reported a 5.9% rise in rough diamond sales year-over-year to $277.3-million. The company sold 1.511-million carats, up almost 16% when compared with a year earlier.

Dominion added that average rough diamond prices rose 8% since January.

The company's output from Ekati swelled to 802 000 ct compared with 483 000 ct a year earlier, while at Diavik Dominion's 40% share of output increased 44.5% to 870 000 ct.

The diamond miner excluded $10.5-million in sales of rough diamonds from Ekati's Misery satellite pipes, saying that it now expected Misery to contribute to commercial production from September 1.

As at July 31, Dominion had a rough diamond inventory of $315-million, of which $45-million represent discretionary goods.

Meanwhile, Dominion also announced that it had appointed Ron Cameron CFO, effective September 8. He would replace Wendy Kei in Yellowknife, who had previously agreed to move from Toronto to Yellowknife for a two-year period to support the move of the company's head office. Kei would now return to Toronto to continue to support the company in a transition role.