De Beers takes 100% of Gahcho Kue, Canada's last mine

Mountain Province's release gives no cash consideration: its 49% goes in satisfaction of reclamation costs and every debt owed to De Beers. An option to buy back runs to 31 December 2029.

By Carat Capital

3 October 2026

What changed

De Beers takes the whole mine. Mountain Province agreed on 1 October 2026 to transfer its 49% participating interest in Gahcho Kue to De Beers Canada, which becomes sole owner. No cash is paid; the interest settles reclamation payments and every debt owed.

What it means

If you buy Canadian rough: One seller now sets the terms at the only producing mine in the country.
If you hold MPVD paper: Interest and capital repayments are suspended for six months while the balance sheet is restructured.
What this is not: A sale for money. No purchase price is stated and none was paid.

Key figures

De Beers' interest on completionit acquires the other 49%	100%
Interest transferringheld by a Mountain Province subsidiary	49%
Realised price a carat, Q2 2026CAD 90 a year earlier	CAD 50
Loss from mine operations, Q2 2026the latest published quarter	CAD 89.8m
Buy-back option expirespriced at the decommissioning share	31 Dec 2029

Source: Mountain Province Diamonds release, 1 October 2026, mountainprovince.com, read direct, 74,501 bytes; quarterly figures from the company's Q2 2026 release of 13 August 2026, 143,437 bytes

The price is cancelled debt.

No cash moves. De Beers obtains the 49% in satisfaction of remaining reclamation payments and all other debts owed to it. Those arose under the joint venture agreement of 18 March 2025 and the payment and security agreement of 24 February 2025.

Debts are discharged. Mountain Province and its subsidiaries are released from the remainder of any indebtedness owed to De Beers, together with accrued and unpaid interest. The agreements themselves terminate. De Beers holds 100% of the participating interest on completion.

Gahcho Kue, the last published quarterMountain Province Q2 2026 release, 13 August 2026 · Canadian dollars as the company reports them · change column computed

Line	Q2 2026	Q2 2025	Change
Carats sold	869,520	411,114	+111.5%
Revenue	CAD 43.5m	CAD 36.8m	+18.2%
Realised price a carat	CAD 50	CAD 90	−44.4%
Realised price a carat, USD	US$36	US$65	−44.6%
Cash cost a carat recovered	CAD 48	CAD 209	−77.0%
Adjusted EBITDA	CAD 8.4m	CAD (2.2)m	not computed
Loss from mine operations	CAD 89.8m	CAD 52.6m	+70.7%
Net loss	CAD 120.6m	CAD 37.7m	+219.9%

Notes on this table

Every figure in the first three columns is published in Mountain Province's own Q2 2026 release of 13 August 2026 and was grepped in the saved bytes before being printed. The change column is Carat Capital's division and is not the company's figure. The realised-price row is the division to read in full: 50 over 90 is 55.6% of the prior level, which is 44.4% below it, and the US dollar pair runs 36 over 65, or 55.4% of and 44.6% below. The EBITDA row is not computed because the prior quarter is negative and a percentage change across zero carries no meaning. No figure in this table is affected by the restructuring agreement, which was signed six weeks after the release.

Mountain Province keeps three doors.

A buy-back runs. The company holds an option to buy the interest back at any time before 31 December 2029. It is priced at the share of decommissioning costs attributable to the interest. A right of first offer and first refusal applies if De Beers later sells.

Repayments pause. Its noteholders and Dunebridge Worldwide have suspended interest and capital repayments for six months. The senior secured lien notes fall due in December 2027.

Canada's last producing mine.

The last operator. Mountain Province's own second-quarter release calls Gahcho Kue the last operating diamond mine in Canada. Diavik closed in March and Ekati filed for solvency in the spring, on JCK's account.

Grades carried volume. The mine recovered more than 2.0 million carats in the three months to 30 June 2026, a second consecutive quarter above that level. Recovery ran 185% above the same quarter of 2025.

Fifty against ninety a carat.

Realisation halved. Gahcho Kue sold 869,520 carats in that quarter at CAD 50 a carat against CAD 90 a year earlier. The division is 50 over 90, or 55.6% of the prior level and 44.4% below it.

Operations lost money. Loss from mine operations was CAD 89.8 million against CAD 52.6 million a year earlier. The net loss was CAD 120.6 million. Cash cost fell to CAD 48 a carat recovered from CAD 209.

The reason is stated. Jonathan Comerford, Mountain Province's chief executive, set the agreement against “a material decline in diamond prices over the past year”. He named tariff uncertainty and Middle East conflict.

What to watch

31 December 2029The option to buy the 49% back expires, priced at the share of decommissioning costs attributable to the interest.
December 2027The senior secured lien notes fall due. The six-month suspension of interest and capital repayments runs out well before that.
Q3 2026 results, date not publishedWhether the realised price a carat recovered. In August the company said its most recent sale showed an improvement it was too early to call sustained.

The story so far

18 August 2026Gahcho Kue sold 111% more carats at 44% less a carat
26 July 2026Diavik closed and still produced 33,000 carats
24 July 2026De Beers dug 88% more and banked 44% less

Go deeper

What would change this call

A transaction that does not complete. Every ownership figure above describes the position on completion of the transaction, not on the date the agreement was signed, and the release states conditions without giving a closing date. If completion slips or fails, Mountain Province still holds the 49% and still owes the reclamation payments, and the six-month standstill from its noteholders becomes the only thing that changed. The second reading that would move the desk's view is a Q3 2026 realised price materially above CAD 50 a carat, which would make the option to 31 December 2029 look like the valuable part of this agreement rather than a courtesy.

What a participating interest is

Gahcho Kue is held as a joint venture, not a company, so what changes hands here is a participating interest rather than a block of shares. A participating interest carries a proportionate share of the mine's output, its operating costs and its end-of-life obligations, and those obligations are the reason this transfer needs no cash. The decommissioning, reclamation and environmental clean-up costs attributable to a 49% interest are a liability that sits against the interest for as long as it is held, and they fall due whether or not the mine is earning. De Beers has been funding Mountain Province's share of them under a payment and security agreement, which is how the debt arose. Taking the interest in satisfaction of that debt therefore moves both the asset and the liability to the same balance sheet in one step. That is also what makes the buy-back option coherent: it is priced at the decommissioning share, so exercising it means re-assuming the liability rather than paying a market price for the ore.

Method

Three documents were fetched with a browser identity and saved as raw bytes before any figure was written: Mountain Province's restructuring release, 200, 74,501 bytes; the company's Q2 2026 results release, 200, 143,437 bytes; and JCK's write-up, 200, 107,961 bytes. Every figure printed was grepped in the saved files. Hit counts in the restructuring release: '49%' 1, '100%' 2, 'December 31, 2029' 1, 'six-month' 1, 'December 2027' 1, 'March 18, 2025' 1, 'February 24, 2025' 1, '96,000' 1, and the quoted phrase 'material decline in diamond prices over the past year' 1. Hit counts in the Q2 2026 release: '869,520' 3, '411,114' 2, '43.5' 3, '36.8' 2, '$50 per carat' 4, '$90 per carat' 2, 'US$36' 3, 'US$65' 2, '89.8' 2, '52.6' 1, '120.6' 2, '$48 per carat' 2, '$209 per carat' 1, '185%' 2, '2.0 million carats' 1, and 'last operating diamond mine in Canada' 1. One period discrepancy in a secondary source is disclosed rather than carried: JCK's write-up gives the mine's production context as 'the first quarter', with 858,173 carats sold for $29.2 million at $34 a carat against $72 a year earlier, each string grepped once in the saved JCK bytes. Mountain Province's own newest financial release is for the second quarter ended 30 June 2026, published 13 August 2026 and titled as Q2 2026 on the company's own news index. The quarterly figures above are therefore taken from the company's later quarter at the primary, and JCK's first-quarter figures are not printed as current. JCK's page states that its news desk uses AI to produce first drafts and that this story was reviewed by a staff writer. ARCHIVE, periods on both sides: Mountain Province and Gahcho Kue, ours 2026-08-18 'one-eleven-up-forty-four-down' covers Q2 2026 trading, the three months to 30 June 2026 (869,520 carats at CAD 50) | the new item is a corporate transaction dated 1 October 2026 transferring the 49% participating interest, a different event in a different period with no overlapping headline figure. DIFFERENT PERIOD and different event type, so NEW rather than advanced. Four archive hits for 'Gahcho' were opened and read, not counted: 2026-07-14 on the Venetia pause, 2026-07-24 on De Beers' second-quarter production, 2026-08-18 on Mountain Province's own quarter and 2026-08-18 on Asian Star. None reports a change of ownership at Gahcho Kue. A search for 'De Beers Canada' returns zero hits in the archive.

Sources3