Temporary layoffs coming for Ekati staff, as fire repairs will take 3 months

It's going to take three months to complete repairs at the processing plant at Ekati diamond mine after a fire last week — and that's going to mean layoffs for some staff.

The fire broke out in the plant on June 23 during a planned outage. No one was injured and the fire was extinguished the same day.

Now Dominion Diamond Corporation says it's completed an assessment of the damage, which was limited to a small area, according to a news release.

"The repairs to the plant are expected to take approximately three months, after which the plant is expected to resume operations at full capacity."

The company says it has a plan to reduce operating and capital costs during the shutdown, which will include an "adjustment of mining operations to pause mining at lower priority and lower value ore bodies."

That will also include temporary layoffs of affected staff across the company. Dominion Diamond didn't specify how many employees it will affect or for how long.

'Prudent course of action'

The company says it will continue to mine higher value material during the closure.

"Ore mined during the process plant downtime will be stockpiled, with the intent to prioritize the processing of the highest value material when the plant resumes operations," the news release said.

Brendan Bell, Dominion Diamond''s CEO, added that they're taking the "most prudent course of action."

The company said it will update its production and cost expectations for the fiscal year.

The Ekati diamond mine is located about 300 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.