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BHP Diamonds and their joint-venture participants DiaMet Minerals, Chuck Fipke and Stewart Blusson are currently developing Canada's first commercial diamond mine in the arctic barren lands of the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada, The paper reviews the early history of the project leading up to the discovery of the first kimberlite pipe in September 1991, diamond exploration techniques and the subsequent advanced exploration and development work carried out at the site, In many aspects, this exploration work represented a development project in itself,

Coinciding with the advanced exploration work, the project team prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and went through federal review of the project at the highest level, External affairs strategies regarding the federal review and aboriginal land claim issues were crucial components to the approval process, Upon approval in principle by the federal government, the project was then required to obtain the actual licences and permits and approvals to proceed with the full scale development, In addition, the project entered into an Impact Benefit Agreement (IBA) with aboriginal groups, a Socioeconomic Agreement with the government of the NWT and an Environmental Agreement with both the federal and territorial government, These unique agreements were all beyond the normal statutory requirements for the project,

All the permits have been in hand since January 1997 and the project has proceeded rapidly and is over 50 per cent complete and on track for an October 1998 start, The project faces challenges of designing and building an operation in the harsh environment of the arctic tundra (desert), Frozen core dams using permafrost engineering design are key components of the size civil works and tailings scheme, The construction program outlines the challenges of building a mine linked only by air and a 400 km winter ice road from January to April each year, The remaining schedule for the development leading to the operations is reviewed,

The proposed mining area is almost on the Arctic Circle near Lac de Gras about 1250 km from Edmondton and 300 km north of Yellowknife. Multiple deposit reserves of over 65 million tonnes have been identified grading at an average of more than one carat/tonne averaging an estimated US$84/carat or US$92/tonne of ore, Around C$750 million is being spent to develop the mines proposed to extract ore at 9000 tonnes/day for the first nine years, doubling to 18000 tonnes/day at lower grades for the remainder of the planned initial 17-year life of the project, During this period 508 million tonnes of waste are scheduled for mining at an average rate of 6.5 tonnes per tonne of ore.