De Beers has placed recently a third order for Suspended Dump Bodies (SDBs) for their Komatsu 830E trucks, taking their fleet over 10 units in their newest project in Canada. These units will be assembled in Edmonton in the next few months and taken over to the mine crossing the world famous winter ice-road.
Gahcho Kué, located 280 km north east of Yellowknife, is the largest new diamond mine under construction in the world. It is expected to produce an average of 4.5 million carats per annum over the life of the mine. First ore was exposed at this mine on March 2016. The commissioning phase introduced ore into the processing facility on June 2016 with the first commissioning carats being recovered on July 2016.
The mining operation has, to date, pre-stripped in excess of 20Mt of waste material during the capital phase, thereby ensuring sufficient exposed ore for production ramp-up. The mine is a joint venture between the DeBeers Group and Mountain Province Diamonds.
