Some 770,000 carats of diamonds were recovered from 1.3 million tons of ore processed at the Ekati diamond mine in Canada during the quarter ending March 31 2010. This marked a reduction of 19% compared to production of 951,000 carats of diamonds during the quarter ending March 2009. BHP Billiton attributes the drop in production to a lower average grade.

For the year to end March 2010, diamond production reached 2.31 million carats, marking a slight reduction from diamond production of 2.32 million carats during the year ending March 2009.