It would be hard to find a junior mining company that has navigated the market meltdown more effectively than Stornoway Diamond Corp.

The diamond sector was hit particularly hard when commodities crashed in 2008, and Stornoway’s Renard project in Quebec vanished off the radar.

But the company, led by famed diamond explorer Eira Thomas, decided to maintain a drill program at Renard, even though it was obviously being very prudent with its cash.

“Thank God for flow-through,” Ms. Thomas said. “It enabled us to raise just enough capital to do a drill program and get in there.”

The results were spectacular, and transformed Renard from a marginal project into a much more robust one. Ms. Thomas said that the modest drilling program added about US$3-billion of value to the deposit. The potential mine life essentially doubled.

An economic assessment of the Renard project is due out at the end of March, and then on to feasibility. The company is hoping to reach production by the end of 2013. It would be Quebec’s first diamond mine.

“We’re sitting at 36.3 million carats now, which makes it one of the largest undeveloped diamond projects in the world,” she said.