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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

Diamonds for Putin: Russia is still earning $ 20 bn on metals and gemstones – by Bohdan Miroshnichenko and Olena Mukhina (Euromaidan Press – July 21, 2023)

https://euromaidanpress.com/

Western countries are slow in imposing sanctions on metals and diamonds from Russia, despite achievements in reducing reliance on its oil and gas. While Russian exports of metals and precious gemstones to US and European markets still bring an additional $20 billion annually, concerns over economic consequences and the need for effective tracking mechanisms have delayed the implementation of restrictions.

Over the past year, European Union countries have eliminated or limited their dependence on Russian oil, petroleum products, coal, and natural gas, which have been lucrative businesses for the Kremlin, bringing it approximately $354 billion in revenues over the first year of its invasion of Ukraine. However, there are other Russian profitable industries that have not been included in sanction packages.

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Lucara provides Karowe underground expansion project update – by Will Owen (Global Mining Review – July 19, 2023)

https://www.globalminingreview.com/

Lucara Diamond Corp. has provided an update on the Karowe Underground Expansion project (the UGP). The Karowe UGP is designed to access the highest value portion of the Karowe orebody, extend mine life to at least 2040 and deliver approximately US$4 billion in additional revenues using conservative diamond price assumptions which are unescalated and exclude exceptional stone revenues.

Management initiated an update to the UGP schedule and budget in response to slower than planned ramp up to expected sinking rates, and, to account for time incurred to date, as well as for anticipated future grouting programs.

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What’s in a name? With Argyle diamonds, quite a lot – by Stuart Kells (The Mandarin – February 20, 2023)

The Mandarin

‘Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got. I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block.’ As with J.Lo, in the history of Australian diamonds, labels are important. Today, ‘Argyle diamonds’ and ‘Argyle pinks’ are iconic brands. The story of those brands, along with related ones such as ‘champagne’ and ‘cognac’ diamonds, is a tale of coincidences, twists and incredible flukes.

The etymology of ‘diamond’ is Greek, and is all about hardness and adamance. ‘Argyle’, however, comes from the British Isles, and specifically from Argyll in western Scotland. The Old Gaelic phrase Airer Goídel means, more or less, ‘border region of the Gaels’.

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Why Africa bleeds diamond revenues – by Neusa e Silva (DW.com – February 20, 2023)

https://www.dw.com/en/

Africa holds mineral wealth with diverse commodities that are sought after the world over. In the diamond industry, local communities miss out on profits despite multilateral certification measures.

In diamond-rich parts of Africa, the revenue generated from mineral extraction does little to improve quality of life for the people who live in those countries, with Botswana being the only exception. Instead of uplifting communities through mineral riches, many people find themselves stuck in a vicious cycle of exploitation and abuse.

DW asked diamond industry insiders and experts why the extraction of the gemstones fails to result in local socioeconomic benefits.

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Ekati sale official, new owners hopeful the future is bright – by Jenna Dulewich (CBC News North – July 7, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

New owners want to extend mine life, hire more northerners

The Ekati diamond mine officially has new owners. The sale, which carries a price tag of $150 million US, was finalized on Tuesday — transferring 100 per cent of the Arctic Diamond Company Limited shares to Burgundy Diamond Mines, an Australian-based company. It is the third company to own the mine since 2017.

“I think it is exciting for everyone,” Kim Truter, CEO of Burgundy Diamond Mines told CBC News. The company wants to extend Ekati’s mining life and hire more northerners. “I think the North desperately needs these diamond mines to continue,” Truter said.

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Ekati finds a new home with Burgundy – by A.J. Roan (North of 60 Mining News – July 5, 2023)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

Acquires diamond mine from Arctic Canadian for US$136M

Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd. has finalized its acquisition of the Ekati diamond mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories, adding another precious stone mine to its portfolio.

Already a 40% partner with North Arrow Minerals Inc. at the Naujaat diamond project in Nunavut, Burgundy closed a transaction on July 4 that provides the Australian diamond company full ownership of the world-class Ekati Mine, which will significantly elevate Burgundy’s efforts to deliver high-end cut and polished diamonds mined in Canada’s Arctic to global markets.

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Labs of luxury: Quality diamonds are now being made by technicians, but can a synthetic gem replace the allure of the real thing? – by Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – July 22, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The biggest challenge for lab-grown diamond producers is finding and hiring enough skilled scientists and technicians to make them quickly and reliably enough in quality and quantity to meet orders

Earlier this year, Frédéric Arnault, the lanky twentysomething head of LVMH’s Tag Heuer brand and potential heir to the Paris-based luxury empire, presented a novelty at the Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva that would have been previously unthinkable for a company dealing in the real and rare: a 350,000-Swiss-franc ($470,000) timepiece featuring diamonds grown in a laboratory.

The glitzy little number, named the Carrera Plasma, is the most expensive product in the 160-year history of Swiss-based Tag Heuer. It boasts a 44-millimetre sandblasted aluminum case set with 48 diamonds and a rhodium-plated brass base dial covered with a single block of polycrystalline diamond.

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What Is The Future Of Lab-grown Diamond Jewellery? – by Rory Bunker (Scoop Business – July 4, 2023)

https://www.scoop.co.nz/

Those who have shopped for jewellery recently may have been presented with the option of a more affordable, laboratory-grown diamond. Some retailers present lab-grown (synthetic) diamonds to consumers as a more ethical and sustainable alternative to mined diamonds.

Technological advancements mean that lab-grown diamonds, which were once economically unviable to produce in large quantities, have begun to be produced at scale as the costs to produce man-made diamonds have fallen dramatically in recent years.

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Wagner’s real money never came from diamonds and gold – by Ellen Ioanes (Vox.com – July 2, 2023)

https://www.vox.com/

Wagner’s businesses in Africa isolate and create dependent economies, not funding for private armies.

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned gold and diamond mining concerns connected to the Wagner group in Mali and the Central African Republic after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group’s founder, attempted to stage a mutiny in Russia last weekend.

The gold and diamond mining enterprises, as well as a UAE-based distributor and a Russian company that the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) says is involved in the scheme, serve to enrich some members of Wagner and their collaborators in Russia and the African countries where they have a foothold. However, the amount the group earns from its illicit mining activities is negligible compared to its significant funding from the Russian government.

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Modi Gifts Jill Biden Lab-Grown Diamond Made In Surat – by Darshan Desai (Free Press Journal – June 22, 2023)

https://www.freepressjournal.in/

Grown in Green Lab, the diamond was delicately cut and polished into a round shape specifically for the purpose of gifting.

Surat: The green lab-grown diamond gifted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the first lady of the United States, Jill Biden, has been cut and polished in diamond hub Surat in Gujarat. The 7.5 carat diamond was grown at the renowned Green Lab in the city’s Ichhapore Gems and Jewellery Park.

Sources close to Mukesh Patel, the chairman of Green Lab, said he was elated that Modi picked a lab-grown diamond produced in his state-of-the-art facility that runs on green energy. Grown in Green Lab, the diamond was delicately cut and polished into a round shape specifically for the purpose of gifting it to Jill Biden. However, the sources refused to divulge the value of the diamond.

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‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ Review: Brilliant Diamond Doc Reveals What Could Burst the Bauble Bubble – by Peter Debrug (Yahoo Finance – February 13, 2022)

https://finance.yahoo.com/

It takes perhaps a billion years to make a diamond, and just 87 minutes to shatter so many of the misconceptions audiences have about them in “Nothing Lasts Forever.” Make that eight minutes. That’s roughly the point at which jewelry designer (and “Stone” author) Aja Raden — the only woman interviewed in Jason Kohn’s wild, decade-long delve into the secretive world of the diamond industry — offers up this gem: “The truth about diamonds is: They’re all exactly the same, and none of them are really worth anything.”

For some, that revelation could hit with the force of being told there’s no Santa Claus, even though it’s been an open secret for ages. Most audiences probably already have some inkling of how the De Beers diamond cartel took a not-particularly-rare stone and infused it with value by cornering the market, stockpiling most of the world’s supply and controlling the release at such a rate as to set the price.

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Inside the Dangerous, ‘Wild West’ World of Guyana’s Pork-Knockers – by Emiliano Ruprah (Atlas Obscura – January 27, 2022)

https://www.atlasobscura.com/

Deep in the country’s interior, the global gold and diamond trade begins with back-breaking labor, environmental destruction, and uncertain profits.

GUYANA’S PORT CITY OF Bartica sits where the Cuyuni, Essequibo and Mazaruni rivers meet. It has long served as a launching point for gold and diamond miners—known as pork-knockers—on their dangerous journey into the wilderness in search of fortune. Nicknamed after the pickled peccary, or wild hog, they often eat, the pork-knockers scatter throughout the dense jungle in small mining outfits of a dozen or so people.

Countless pieces of jewelry gleaming in shop windows around the world have their origins here, in the back-breaking labor of the pork-knockers and other unsung participants in the global gold and diamond trades. This is their story.

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PM Modi’s Gift to First Lady Shines Spotlight on Surat’s Green Diamond Market – by Neha Choubey (Native Planet – June 23, 2023)

https://www.nativeplanet.com/

The world of gemstones has been revolutionized with a groundbreaking discovery in India. Scientists have successfully created a lab-grown green diamond, replicating the stunning beauty of nature’s gems. This remarkable achievement opens new doors in the world of jewelry and showcases the advancements in diamond synthesis technology.

The Rise of Lab-Grown Diamonds:

Over the past few years, there has been a surge in the popularity of lab-grown diamonds, primarily driven by their ethical and sustainable production methods. Recently, they made headlines when Prime Minister Modi presented a lab-grown diamond to First Lady Jill Biden.

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Supercomputers Reveal Earth’s Incredible Secret Diamond Engine – by Darren Orf (Popular Mechanics – June 1, 2023)

https://www.popularmechanics.com/

The discovery has massive repercussions for humanity as we know it.

Diamonds primarily need three things to form: pressure, heat, and lots of time. Those three ingredients can be easily found in the Earth’s mantle—the goopy, extra hot geologic soup that separates the planet’s core from its crust. But if these precious stones form some 100 miles below the surface, how exactly do they show up in mines and jewelry stores across the globe?

For decades, scientists have known that volcanic eruptions of an igneous rock known as kimberlite can contain diamonds in their rock matrix, and such kimberlite hot spots can be found in South Africa, the northeastern U.S., and Siberia, among other places. So while this volcanic phenomena essentially burps up diamonds, what is the geologic engine behind those eruptions?

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Surat Diamond Dealers Exploit Loopholes In Sierra Leone’s Diamond Trade (The Blunt Times – June 16, 2023)

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Many other dealers from Surat, travels to Sierra Leone multiple times a year, purchasing high-value rough diamonds from artisanal workers employed in the local diamond mines

Surat : Samrat Patel (name changed), a diamond dealer from Surat, has become a frequent visitor to Sierra Leone, a diamond mining country in West Africa. Patel, like many other dealers from Surat, travels to Sierra Leone multiple times a year, purchasing high-value rough diamonds from artisanal workers employed in the local diamond mines. However, these diamonds are often stolen from the mines by the workers and sold to dealers like Patel at throwaway prices, allowing them to earn significant profits back in Surat.

Sierra Leone, known for its diamond reserves, has attracted the attention of Surat’s diamond industry, primarily centered in the world’s largest diamond cutting and polishing center. Patel’s visits to Sierra Leone have resulted in a lucrative bounty of rough diamonds that he brings back with him. The diamonds are concealed in bags to evade the scrutiny of customs officials at the airport, as carbon-based diamonds are not easily detectable by sophisticated scanning machines.

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