N.W.T. company says it’s owed roughly $8M from Ekati mine’s owner

By Jocelyn Shepel 

Burgundy Diamond Mines ‘committed to maintaining payments,’ spokesperson says

An N.W.T. company says it’s had to lay off dozens of staff because of missed payments and a lack of clarity about future plans from the owner of the Ekati diamond mine.

Lee Cawson is vice president of operations for the Aurora Group of Companies, which oversees local auto dealerships and also provides heavy truck and mechanical services to mines like Ekati. He says Ekati’s owner, Burgundy Diamond Mines, is about $8 million in arrears.

He said Aurora had around 90 mechanics and welders at the Ekati site, but as of last week they had all been permanently laid off.

“Everybody is trying, everybody’s making concessions and trying to work together. And there’s been lots of people trying to help to make sure that everything can move forward and succeed,” said Cawson.

“You can only do it for so long before you have to make decisions from a business point of view, and move forward.”

Australia-based Burgundy Diamond Mines said earlier this year that record-low diamond prices had forced the lay-off of hundreds of workers. In 2024, the company reported losses of $97 million.

Last month, the company requested an extension of a public trading halt on the Australian Securities Exchange. The company first requested a trading halt in July and then again in September.

It also said in September that it had applied for tariff relief from the Canadian government, “to ensure the continued financial viability of the company and the operations of the Ekati mine.” The company said U.S. tariffs were disrupting the global diamond trade.  

Burgundy Diamond Mines did not respond to a request for an interview.

In an emailed statement, Burgundy spokesperson Ariella Calin did not provide any information about missed payments to contractors at Ekati, including the $8 million the Aurora Group alleges it’s owed.

“However, we take our vendor relationships very seriously and are committed to maintaining payments,” Calin wrote.

“While there are challenges affecting our industry and Burgundy, we are actively working to resolve issues when they arise.”

The company’s financial challenges are also having an impact on its Ekati closure plans. In an October letter to the Wek’èezhìi Land and Water Board, Burgundy asked to extend the deadlines for some environmental assessments, saying progress on its closure plans had “slowed.”

“This request is necessary due to ongoing financial challenges that have delayed invoice payments to our consultants, which in turn have affected the progression of technical work required for these submissions,” the document reads.

The N.W.T. government has said it holds $327 million in securities for Ekati, to cover areas like remediation and closure.

‘No updates, no plans, no confirmation’

Cawson says the Aurora Group has never had problems recovering payment from Burgundy until this past June.

“We were trying to come up with some payment arrangements where they would continue to keep some cash flowing to us and then work on the past-due amounts,” Cawson said. He says as time went on Aurora Group began temporarily laying people off in stages and by September, its 90 or so staff had been removed from Ekati.

“Things got even worse and there was no updates, no plans, no confirmation for us as to how they were going to work their way out of it. So in order to protect ourselves, we pulled all our people off site.”