Stornoway Diamond Corporation and Hunter Exploration Group have announced the final tranche of results from the processing of a total of 191 tons of kimberlite collected in the course of 2008 from the ES1 kimberlite at the Aviat Diamond Project in Nunavut. The second part of the sample yielded 213.2 carats of diamonds from 148.3 tons of kimberlite, constituting a diamond recovery rate of 144 carats per hundred tons. The three largest diamonds recovered from this sample are 3.99, 1.72 and 1.22 carats. They were described as an off white clivage, grey clivage and a white octahedron, respectively. The 3.99 carat stone is the largest diamond recovered from the Aviat project to date.

As reported earlier, the first tranche of sample collected at the AV6 outcrop yielded 89.6 carats of diamonds from 42.7 tons of kimberlite, constituting a diamond recovery of 210 carats per hundred tons.

Stornoway President and CEO Matt Manson noted: "We are encouraged by another high grade sample from Aviat, and the recovery of the largest diamond to date at the project. Individual large tonnage samples from the volumetrically significant ES1 kimberlite have now returned diamond contents of up to 210 cpht. The next stage in the project will be to determine a representative diamond valuation on the more than 340 carats returned to date from ES1, and to undertake a desktop analysis of viable mining methods for this large potential deposit."

The Aviat Project is a joint venture between Stornoway (90%) and Hunter (10%). Stornoway holds 100% of the diamond marketing rights.