The Gahcho Kué diamond mine’s owners said on Tuesday their joint venture has now spent more than $2 billion with NWT businesses since construction began in 2015.
De Beers and Mountain Province Diamonds said that represented 61 percent of the $3.2 billion spent on procurement overall in the same period.
Mountain Province Diamonds chief executive Mark Wall said 2023 had marked the mine’s “highest-ever level of spending with NWT businesses,” which the companies said amounted to $228 million spent with northern and Indigenous firms.
Gahcho Kué, which opened in 2016 some 280 km northeast of Yellowknife, is an open-pit mine expected to remain operational until around 2030. The potential to expand underground has also been explored.
The NWT has three operational diamond mines.
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Diavik, which is expected to close in 2026, says it spent $374 million with northern companies in 2023 on top of $7.1 billion spent in the North prior to that year.
Ekati, which is aiming to remain in operation until 2040, says it spent $246 million with northern firms in 2023.
Together, those figures mean the NWT’s diamond mines self-reported a little over $800 million in northern spend last year.
The territory’s political leaders have repeatedly expressed a desire to find something to fill the gap likely to be left when the diamond mines close in the years to come.
To date, no industry with quite the same revenue or job creation prospects has been identified. In a warning earlier this year, one economist described an “economic cliff” on the horizon.
