By 30 June 2023, the sale of Ekati, Canada's first diamond mine to Australia-based Burgundy is due to be completed.
This will be the second time the mine has changed hands in under two-and-a-half years. In February 2021, the Arctic Canadian Diamond Company acquired the deposit which is located 125 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
The reason was that the previous owners, Dominion Diamonds, had filed for insolvency. Ekati opened in 1998, seven years after diamond-bearing kimberlites were discovered.
Western Australia's Burgundy is paying $136m and the name 'The Arctic Diamond' will be retained.
It is said that Arctic Diamond has plans to flood the existing open pit and deploy a remote-controlled underwater crawler. This would be the first use of such technology to retrieve diamonds.
Aruna Gaitonde, Editor in Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished
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