Shear Minerals Ltd, which in July of this year purchased the defunct Jericho diamond mine in Canada's Nunavut Territory for $38 million, plans to renew drilling in spring 2011.

Shear Minerals CEO Pamela Strand told the CBC that the company planned to look into "everything that went wrong" at Jericho, prompting the mine's closure, and would take approximately a year to devise a plan to reopen the mine and resume diamond production.

The Jericho diamond mine was developed, launched and operated by the Tahera Diamond Corporation between 2006 and 2008, until the company went bankrupt. While operative, the mine produced 780,000 carats of diamonds. Current estimates put the mine's remaining production potential at some 375,000 carats of rough diamonds with a total value of C$24.5 billion.