- Exploration company focused on diamond opportunities in Canada
- Very few companies looking for new diamond deposits and Canada remains underexplored
- Strategic progression in both early and advanced-stage projects
What North Arrow Minerals does:
North Arrow Minerals Inc (CVE:NAR) is a Vancouver-based exploration company focused on the identification and evaluation of diamond exploration opportunities in Canada.
The company's management, board of directors and advisors have significant successful experience in the global diamond industry, particularly in Canada and Africa.
North Arrow’s most advanced diamond project is the Q1-4 diamond deposit at the Naujaat Project in Nunavut where funding is in place for a $5.6 million 2,000 ton bulk sample starting in June 2021.
North Arrow has also discovered and is evaluating kimberlite fields at the Mel Project, also on the Melville Peninsula in Nunavut, and the Pikoo Project in Saskatchewan, and is evaluating and exploring for additional kimberlites at the Loki and Lac de Gras joint-venture projects in the Northwest Territories.
In addition to its diamond projects, the company maintains a 100% interest in the Hope Bay Oro gold project in Nunavut.
How is it doing:
The diamond market has bounced back from the severe impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which saw producers cutting back supply in response to a decline in demand from large consumers including China and the US.
The recovery in those countries' economies has boosted demand, with the result that the diamond market is doing very well right now, placing North Arrow Minerals in a position of strength.
The company has a large deposit of diamonds that it is assessing at a time where there are very few projects at the same stage of development as its Naujaat Diamond Project in Nunavut in northern Canada.
Put simply, the world is running out of diamonds, and North Arrow has found some.
The company has stuck to its schedule, announcing the start of its $5.6 million bulk sampling program at Naujaat on June 21, 2021.
Field crews were on-site with preparations underway for the start of sample collection during the first week of July. The program, scheduled to run through the end of August, will involve the collection of up to 2,000 tons from the Q1-4 kimberlite.
The sample will be shipped south in September, with processing and diamond recovery expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2021. Diamonds recovered from the sample are intended to confirm the size distribution and character of an important population of potentially high-value, fancy yellow to orange-yellow diamonds found in the Q1-4 deposit.
The program is funded by partner Burgundy Diamond Mines (ASX:BDM), as part of an option agreement signed in June 2020 under which Burgundy may earn a 40% interest in the Naujaat Project by funding the current bulk sample program.
“Naujaat represents a potentially significant future diamond operation, and the bulk sample is intended to provide more substantive information on the contained population of high-value Orangey Yellow and Yellow stones. We believe their value contribution is much greater than previously indicated from earlier sampling, and that the economic potential of Naujaat is higher than earlier studies have suggested," Peter Ravenscroft, managing director and CEO of Burgundy Diamonds said in a company update letter on June 21, 2021.
Simultaneously, the firm has started a short till sampling program on the newly staked CSI project in Nunavut, located just west of the Muskox and Jericho kimberlite areas.
North Arrow told investors it believes the property “could potentially host a bedrock source for regionally anomalous kimberlite indicator mineral samples reported by earlier workers.”
The till sampling program is designed to test new interpretations of surficial geology in the area, which could help identify a kimberlite source within the property.
Not all drill targets have been successful. At Loki, which is located in the Lac de Gras region of the Northwest Territories, home to some of the world’s leading diamond deposits, North Arrow said that it had not discovered kimberlite during a six-hole drill program.
Financially, North Arrow has bulked up its funds after raising $1.01 million from a private placement of shares in early June. Proceeds from the placement were targeted partially at the exploration drill program at Loki with the remainder most likely to be focused on advancing the Pikoo Project in the fall.
Inflection points:
- Bulk sampling program getting underway at Naujaat
- Diamond population contains high-value yellow to orange-yellow diamonds
- Sampling to confirm what so far presents as a ‘coarse population’.
What the boss says:
“Naujaat is our flagship project. At over 20 million carats of resources in the ground, it’s the largest diamond resource in Canada that’s not already under control of a diamond producer,” North Arrow Minerals CEO Ken Armstrong told Proactive’s Steve Darling in an interview on June 21, 2021.
“We’ve been evaluating it now since 2014 and have collected samples. We’ve done some drilling and we know that it’s big and that resource, located near a community of Naujaat, right on the Arctic Circle and the Arctic Ocean so we don’t need an exploration camp; we can work from town. Most importantly, too, it’s funded by our new partner, Burgundy Diamond Mines.”
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com
