TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed exploration junior Kennady Diamonds has announced diamond recovery results from the 2013 summer drill programme at the Kennady North diamond project, located in Canada's Northwest Territories, that exceeded expectations.

The 2013 Kelvin summer drill programme returned an average sample grade of 4.56 ct/t.

The Toronto-based firm sad it had recovered 3 454 kg of kimberlite from 21 holes drilled at the Northwest Lobe of the Kelvin kimberlite. The kimberlite was processed at the Geoanalytical Laboratories Diamond Services, at the Saskatchewan Research Council, which is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard by the Standards Council of Canada as a testing laboratory for diamond analysis using caustic fusion.

"2013 has been a remarkably successful year for Kennady Diamonds. Our two drill campaigns have produced results, which far exceeded our expectations,” CEO Patrick Evans said.

Overall, the company had recovered a total of 4.3 t of kimberlite from Kelvin containing more than 16 000 microdiamonds of which 474 are commercial size diamonds.

The Kelvin summer drill programme returned a sample grade of 4.56 ct/t and the winter programme returned a sample grade of 8.13 ct/t, for a combined sample grade of 5.38 ct/t.

“These are amongst the highest kimberlite sample grades ever recorded and confirm that the Kelvin kimberlite has both a coarse diamond size distribution, as well as the potential to host a high-grade diamond resource.

“In addition to the outstanding sample grade, it is very encouraging to see the presence of a number of high-quality macro diamonds without any inclusions. Together with grade, diamond quality is a key value driver,” Evans added.

Besides the sample grade, about 60% of the diamonds recovered from Kelvin during 2013 were classified as white and transparent. Most of the white diamonds had either no inclusions or only minor inclusions. About 2% of the diamonds were classified as yellow and transparent with either no or only minor inclusions. The bulk of the remaining diamonds were classified as off-white and transparent.

Kennady said preparations for the 2014 winter exploration programme were now under way.

The next expedition would aim to examine geophysics over the Kelvin and Faraday kimberlites, as well as new exploration targets outside the Kelvin - Faraday kimberlite corridor, and was scheduled to start in February 2014.

This would be followed in March by a much expanded drill programme, including more than 10 000 m of delineation and exploration drilling and extracting a mini-bulk sample of about 25 t to 30 t from the Kelvin kimberlite.

The 2014 winter programme was expected to wrap up by May, with the results being announced in the third quarter of 2014.

The company planned to publish a maiden resource statement for the Kennady North project during the fourth quarter of 2014.