Stornoway Diamond Corporation announced the completion of commercial production at the Renard Diamond Mine.

Matt Manson, President and CEO of Stornoway, stated: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Renard team on achieving this important milestone well within schedule and budget, and with quality workmanship from the beginning. The attainment of commercial production marks the end of the project’s capital expense period, and our final capital costs are forecast to be comfortably within the reduced C$775 million estimate set out in February 2016. Our production ramp-up continues, with three diamond sales scheduled for the first quarter of 2017.”

Commercial Production at Renard is defined as an average processing rate of 60 percent of plant name-plate capacity over a 30 day period. This was achieved on December 3, 2016, with an average processing rate of 4,120 tonnes per day over the preceding 30 day period compared to a name-plate capacity of 6,000 tonnes per day. According to Stornoway’s financing agreements, the company will formally declare commercial production on January 1, 2017, the first day of the month following the month in which it is achieved. The company expects to continue the ramp-up of the process plant to full production over the next two quarters.