Shore Gold takes the reins at Fort la Corne (November 03, 2005)

Just days after completing its merger with Kensington Resources (KRT-V), and taking a 42.245% stake in the Fort la Corne (FalC) diamond project, Shore Gold (SGF-T) has inked a deal giving it voting control over the project.

Under the recent deal, Shore has locked up voting support from Cameco (CCO-T) and UEM Inc. with regards to operating decisions at the joint venture for up to 7 years. In return, Shore will pay $10 million in cash.

Kensington, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Shore, has a 42.245% interest in the FalC joint venture; De Beers Canada holds a similar stake, with Cameco holding 5.51% and UEM carried at 10%.

Says Shore chief executive Kenneth MacNeill of what the deal means to the project: “We believe we can help put our shoulder to the wheel. Certainly anything we can do to move the project along we’d be willing to offer to the other parties.”

MacNeill also says his company would like to do anything it can to help accelerate work.

The 225-sq.-km FalC project is home to 63 known kimberlite bodies, with the largest measuring up to 200 hectares on scale with some of the biggest in the world. The jv partners are in the midst of a 3-year exploration and evaluation program designed to advance the project to a decision regarding prefeasibility in 2008, with the ultimate goal of outlining a resource of 70-100 million carats of diamond.

Meanwhile, on the Star kimberlite project, adjacent to the southeast, MacNeill says the latest 1,895.5-kg batch kimberlite yielded an average diamond grade of 18.15 carats per hundred tonne (cpht) higher than the average so far. Included in the latest results is a 45.6-tonne sample running 23.28 cpht.

The four largest stones measure 7.06 carats, 5.97 carats, 4.99 carats and 4.9 carats. In all, 17 stones exceed 2 carats with another 49 weighing in at more than 1 carat. Of those, 20 are white, 7 are off-white, 15 are grey, and 5 are brown. In all some 2,289 diamonds exceeding 1.18 mm were recovered from the Early Joli Fou stratigraphic-equivalent kimberlite.

“These are nice stones, including a lot of diamonds both over a carat and larger too,” adds MacNeill.

Shores Vice President of Exploration George Read says the recovery of another 15,000 tonnes of kimberlite from Star’s underground workings is almost done, with the latest haul bringing to 4,923.82 the total number of carats recovered during 2 stages of exploration. Plans call for a package of 6,000 to 7,000 carats to be assembled for valuation.

MacNeill says the latest results are also significant in that they represent stones farther away from the shaft “and grades continues to look good.”

Shares in shore were 13, or 1.8%, higher at $7.44 in late afternoon trading in Toronto on Nov. 3. The share have traded in a 52-week window of $2.35-7.50.