Kennady Diamonds Inc said that the diamond recovery results for the Faraday 3 and Faraday 1 kimberlites on its Kennady North Project were exciting and encouraging, particularly the recovery of a number of large stones of over one carat, including a 7.78 ct stone which was the largest recovered to date at the project.

The samples were collected during the winter programme that was designed to further delineate both kimberlites as well as to recover sufficient carats from Faraday 3 for valuation, Kennady said.

Giving additional details, the Company reported that at Faraday 3, a total of 460.5 carats of diamonds (+0.85mm) were recovered from 276.4 tonnes for a sample grade of 1.67 carats per tonne. There were 26 diamonds of one carat or greater, of which nine are gem quality and seven are “near gem” quality.

However, Kennady cautioned that “since drilling was designed to sample the thickest parts of the pipe in order to maximize carats recovered for the purpose of resource definition, the sample grade reported here may not be representative of the grade of the entire kimberlite pipe”.

The five largest diamonds recovered from the Faraday 3 bulk sample are:

• 7.78 carat white/colourless octahedron with no inclusions

• 4.02 carat white/colourless octahedron with minor inclusions;

• 3.41 carat off-white octahedron with minor inclusions;

• 3.38 carat off-white octahedron with noticeable inclusions

• 3.08 carat off-white octahedron with no inclusions.

Similarly, at Faraday 1, a total of 76.8 carats of diamonds (+0.85mm) were recovered from 26.37 tonnes for a sample grade of 2.91 carats per tonne. There were 8 diamonds of one carat or greater.

The five largest diamonds recovered from the Faraday 1 bulk sample are:

• 3.21 carat white/colourless tetrahexahedron with noticeable inclusions

• 2.35 carat off white translucent octahedron with no inclusions;

• 2.31 carat off white transparent octahedron with no inclusions;

• 1.94 carat brown transparent octahedral twin with noticeable inclusions;

• 1.64 carat white/colourless tetrahexahedron with no inclusions.

President and CEO of Kennady Diamonds, Dr. Rory Moore commented: “While the grade achieved for the Faraday 3 kimberlite is in line with expectations, the recovery of a high quality 7.78 carat gem from the sample is extremely exciting.”

He further added: “As with Faraday 2, the size distribution and quality characteristics of the Faraday 3 diamonds appear better than those recovered from Kelvin to date, with a notable trend of increased quality with diamond size and a higher incidence of well-formed crystals in the larger size fractions.”

Speaking about Faraday 1, Dr Moore said: “We are highly encouraged by these initial results for Faraday 1 that confirm the high-grade nature of the kimberlite. The recovery of eight diamonds larger than one carat in size from such a small sample provides strong evidence for a robust size distribution, which together with quality characteristics that are similar to the diamonds recovered from the other Faraday pipes, confirms its potential to add considerable value to the growing diamond resource on the Kennady North Project.”

The Company said that WWW International Diamond Consultants (WWW) has been retained to provide an independent valuation of the Faraday bulk sample diamonds together with size frequency distribution and revenue models. The results are expected in early August.