9 January 2024
9 January2024
Burgundy Diamond Mines Limited (ASX: BDM) (Burgundy or the Company) is providing this update in its letter to shareholders.
Re: New Year letter to shareholders from CEO and Managing Director Kim Truter
Dear shareholders.
As Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Burgundy Diamond Mines, its my pleasure to write this letter to you as we reflect on 2023 and look ahead on what 2024 will deliver for our company and all our stakeholders.
To say that 2023 was transformative for our business and for our people is an understatement. It was a foundational year for Burgundy as we evolved from a modest sized exploration company into a globally significant diamond producer. Burgundy is now the world’s leading publicly listed end-to-end diamond company, and the biggest diamond producer in Canada and the Group of Seven nations (G7) worldwide.
We completed the acquisition of Arctic Canadian Diamond Company on 1 July 2023, and we successfully integrated the Burgundy teams throughout Canada, Belgium and Australia. We have continued to enhance our operations and improve the performance across all business units, centred primarily on our Ekati Diamond Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories and our selling activities in Antwerp, Belgium. Our manufacturing facilities in Perth, Australia also produced some of the finest polished fancy-coloured diamonds from our very own supply in Canada, ensuring ethical and sustainable provenance throughout.
I have been pleased to see the entire Burgundy team integrate and engage as one unified organisation under one global brand. Our people have been unwavering in their commitment and professionalism throughout what has been an immense period of change and growth. I would like to thank our people for their endurance and expertise and commitment.
I would also like to say a sincere thank you to our shareholders for supporting our business and endorsing our refined corporate strategy, to enhance our growth trajectory as a truly vertically integrated, end to end global diamond company.
It was terrific to have some key investors. customers and stakeholders attend a site visit at Ekati mine in November last year. giving them first-hand experience and insight into our world class operations. The feedback from those who attended was extremely positive, in line with the effort and energy of our teams on site.
Our stakeholders - induding lhe government. communities. and contractors. are vital to the ongoing success of our business and thank them all for their continued support.
Importantly, we are working hard to continuously improve and evolve our operations. while maintaining safety as our top priority amid seeking to extend our life of mine at the Ekati operation as well as loaking at other growth opportunities
A landmark of 25 years of production crossing a milestone of more 95 million carats produced at Ekati in this timeframe. This is a terrific achievement and a testament to the quality of this asset, which still contains one of the largest undeveloped diamond resources in the world.
We improved and stabilised mining production and consistently achieved mine planning targets each month in 2023, helping us to achieve the highest tonnage processed in the plant since 2013.
And we developed an exciting new conceptual life or mine plan for Ekati, that will potentially extend operations towards 2040. This will be achieved through the extension of Misery underground, moving underground at Sable, developing an underground mine at Fox, processing an existing low-grade stockpile at Fox, opening the Point Lake project, and implementing the underwater remote mining project if trials are successful.