Mountain Province’s fifth diamond sale achieves high results

Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. concluded its fifth diamond sale with revenues worth $21.1 million. This represents the company’s strongest sale performance to date. Altogether 222,000 diamonds were sold at a per carat price of $95.

The results achieved were higher as it included a selection of the fancies and specials won by the company, and which otherwise were scheduled to be included in the sixth sale, which will occur in the second half of July. Very positive prices were realized on the fancies and specials, and prices realized on the remainder of the offering also exceeded expectations. Excluding these high value diamonds, the average value realized per carat was US$75.

This reflects the finer size and lower quality distribution of this particular sales offering, as the Company indicated in May would be the case in connection with its first quarter reporting.

Reid Mackie, Vice President Diamond Marketing, at Mountain Province said that, “The June tender sale was our best attended to date and produced a record number of bids. Repeat customers won 75 percent of lots, indicating that the rough market’s understanding of our diamonds’ performance at manufacturing is positive and well on track.”

David Whittle, the company’s Interim President and Chief Executive Officer mentioned that, “With the winterization improvements successfully completed, the mine has made good progress in catching up on production tonnage relative to plan. As a result, and combined with the notably positive recovered grade performance, year-to-date carat production has fully caught up to plan. Given the positive experience in our diamond marketing efforts, the trend leading in to the second half of our first year of production is encouraging.” Operationally, ore production rates have been strong, the diamond processing plant is functioning at and above nameplate capacity, and total production costs to date are broadly consistent with budget. Regarding pit operations, the mine operator, De Beers Canada, has advised that for geotechnical reasons a push-back of the east wall of the 5034 pit is required, and initial work on that push-back has now commenced. While the operator has not yet determined the full cost impact, it is expected that the main effect will be spread over the next three years. The company declared the commencement of commercial production on March 1, 2017.