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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

A diamond may be forever — for some — but for millennials it’s looking like not so much – by Sunny Freeman (Financial Post – February 11, 2017)

http://business.financialpost.com/

A diamond pendant is draped over a white t-shirt-clad 20-something woman as she runs through a corn field and swims with her clothes on while purring, “There was a moment in there that goodbye was inevitable … maybe we won’t ever get married and maybe we will.”

In another ad, the male narrator explains, “There was a time I panicked: Was this too much too fast … Who knows if we’ll ever slow down, I’m not thinking about that right now,” after a woman brushes her three-ring diamond necklace over his lips.

Those little doubting soliloquies from a couple of new sepia-toned diamond ad spots may seem like the antithesis of marketing in an industry that has been injecting itself into marriage proposals since the 1940s, when DeBeers launched its famous “a diamond is forever” campaign and solidified a steady stream of demand for the precious gem.

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Rio Tinto gives shelved diamond mine to central Indian state – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 7, 2017)

http://www.mining.com/

Mining giant Rio Tinto (ASX, LON:RIO) said Tuesday it’s handing its shelved and massive Bunder diamond deposit in India to the state government of Madhya Pradesh, where the mine is located.

The company, which spent almost $120 million on the asset discovered in 2004, had planned to invest an extra $500 million to develop it. But Rio decided last year to mothball it due to regulatory hurdles, local opposition and weak diamond prices.

The Madhya Pradesh government will take ownership of the assets, including all the land, plant, equipment, and diamond samples recovered during exploration, Rio said in the statement.

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OPINION: Letting diamond mine go won’t help Attawapiskat’s community crisis – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – February 7, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

No one begrudges the political administration in Attawapiskat First Nation for placing a high priority on youth suicides in their community. But surely, community leaders can put two and two together and see a connection between limited economic prosperity and an absence of hope among their youth.

During the height of the suicide crisis last year, the lack of adequate mental health services for youth on First Nations in the North was identified as a key problem. Yet, there is only so much enhanced mental health services can offer.

Real hope comes from available opportunities to fulfil life’s goals. Living in an environment of despair, surrounded by drug abuse and unemployment isn’t likely to fuel confidence that the ripening fruits of adulthood are worth waiting for.

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De Beers shelves Northern Ontario’s Tango extension – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – February 7, 2017)

http://www.timminspress.com/

ATTAWAPISKAT – Plans for an expansion of the Victor diamond mine north of Timmins have been put on indefinite hold by De Beers Canada after the mining company failed to get the support for the project it was seeking from the Attawapiskat First Nation.

The Tango Extension, as the project was called, would have allowed the Victor Mine to continue producing diamonds past its expected closure at the end of 2018. However, despite the company’s efforts, the First Nation’s government, headed by Chief Ignace Gull, never warmed to the project.

Tom Ormsby, De Beers’ head of external and corporate affairs, put a positive spin on the company’s decision to put the Tango Extension aside by saying it was a “refocusing of priorities.” Instead of continuing to work towards making the Tango Extension a reality, De Beers hopes to make use of the leftover low-grade ore that has already been mined.

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Lacking local support, De Beers shelves Ontario diamond mine expansion – by Susan Taylor (Globe and Mail/Reuter – February 6, 2017)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

TORONTO — De Beers is shelving immediate plans to study an expansion project at a remote northern Ontario diamond mine after failing to get support from a neighboring aboriginal community, a “disappointing” setback for the world’s top diamond producer, the mine’s manager said.

The isolated Victor mine in the James Bay lowlands produces some 600 carats of diamonds annually and is scheduled to stop production in late 2018 and close in early 2019, De Beers Canada general manager James Kirby told Reuters late last week.

The nearby Tango deposit could have added five or six years, but assessment work will not proceed without formal support from the First Nation of Attawapiskat, 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of the mine, Kirby added.

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Illegal mining eating into Panna, India’s only diamond producing region – by Neeraj Santoshi (Hindustan Times – January 27, 2017)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/

Ask anybody in Panna about diamond mining and the response will be: “Number 2 or Number 1?” For locals, the former is illegal and the latter legal.

In the country’s only diamond producing region, situated nearly 400 km from Bhopal in northeastern Madhya Pradesh, illegal mining is rampant, with even Gond tribals, besides other locals, being involved in the trade.

Extending 240 km along the Vindhya ranges in Bundelkhand region, diamond deposits can be found in forests, farms and government land.

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Rough deal: Panna’s biggest diamond auction means nothing for its miners – by Neeraj Santoshi (Hindustan Times – January 25, 2017)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/

Panna, India – Gond tribal Jaggu ‘Adivasi’ is not losing his sleep over a 2 carat diamond he found in the gravel of Panna in November last year. It is out of his hands and will be among the diamonds that would go for lakhs of rupees at a government auction in the Panna collectorate on January 30. Jaggu, who seems to be in his 30s but looks much older, has been paid his wages. It is unlikely he will ever know how much the 2 carat (1 carat= 0.2 gram) diamond went for.

The January 30 auction is the biggest in the history of Panna’s shallow diamond mines and bids would be made for nearly 594 rough diamonds weighing around 476 carats. “Normally diamonds worth Rs 40 lakh to Rs 60 lakh are sold at each auction (four such auctions are held in a year).

Though we don’t reveal the price of individual diamonds, collectively we are hoping to get Rs 1 crore in the auction on January 30,” said Ratnesh Dixit, the diamond officer of Panna.

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De Beers Has Biggest Diamond Sale in a Year as Buyers Return – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – January 24, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

De Beers had its biggest diamond sale in at least a year as the gem industry restocked after the key holiday period.

The company, owned by Anglo American Plc, sold $720 million of diamonds in its first sale of the year, compared with $545 million at last year’s January offering, it said in a statement Tuesday.

The world’s biggest diamond producer said it saw “good demand” across most diamond categories, while there was a larger-than-usual gap between its previous sale.

The large amount may help boost confidence that demand is continuing to rebound after a slump in 2015.

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Diamond Lobby Wants to Get Serious About Millennials – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – January 18, 2017)

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The diamond industry is looking to up the ante on its effort to win over younger consumers more interested in gadgets and gastronomy.

The Diamond Producers Association lobby will ask its backers including top miners De Beers and Alrosa PJSC to raise its budget to as much as $60 million a year from $6 million, said people familiar with the plans, who asked not to be identified as discussions are private.

The group was set up in 2015 with an eye to try reviving the glory days of half a century ago when slogans like “a diamond is forever” were ubiquitous in popular culture.

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Risky business pays off for Canadian mine developers – by Ella Myers (Northern Ontario Business – January 13, 2017)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Goodman School of Mines fireside chat yields inspirational career stories

In 1991, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer and Eira Thomas embarked on journeys that would separately launch their careers in mine development and discovery. In 2015, the women celebrated together as their company, Lucara Diamonds, unearthed a softball-sized diamond in Botswana.

The third largest diamond ever discovered signified the risky but rewarding nature of their industry. McLeod-Seltzer, the chair of Bear Creek Mining, and Thomas, founder of Lucara, joined Jonathan Goodman, Laurentian University’s executive in residence, for an informal, fireside chat in Sudbury, Jan. 10.

Speaking from a couch nestled beside a tiny gas fireplace, McLeod-Seltzer shared how she accepted a job running an office for a gold company in Chile in 1991. She said the global economic climate was open and optimistic and that there was a “shiny path” in South America.

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Diamonds forever: Will Israel stay away from Congo? – by Daniel Brett (Al Arabiya.net – January 11, 2017)

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/

Building an empire in Congo

“Nothing happens in Congo without Dan Gertler and Gertler can do nothing without playing the Israeli card,” said an advisor to an international mining conglomerate. But the net is tightening around the Israeli billionaire mining magnate who dominates the economic life of the resource rich but economically impoverished Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Israeli mining magnate has been fundamental in the Kabila family’s control of the DRC over the past two decades. But the 42-year-old billionaire, who was the inspiration of for the movie Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is now under international scrutiny over corruption.

Meanwhile, his main Congolese ally, President Joseph Kabila, is clinging on by his fingertips to power. The fragile situation in the Central African rentier state threatens to drag the Israeli security establishment into a renewed conflict to defend the billionaire’s interests.

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Insider Q&A: De Beers CEO Talks Diamonds, Millennials – by Joseph Pisani (ABC News.com – January 8, 2017)

http://abcnews.go.com/

nstead of romantic proposals and engagement rings, the commercials trying to sell a new generation on diamonds show young couples rolling around on a bed, arguing in a car and even questioning whether they’ll ever marry.

The ads are one way the diamond industry is trying to reach millennials, the under-35-year-olds who may be more focused on paying off student loan debt than buying diamonds and getting hitched.

De Beers, the company that helped pay for the new commercials, says millennials are still purchasing diamonds, even though they are typically less affluent than their parents were at the same age. “They are buying smaller pieces,” says De Beers Group CEO Bruce Cleaver.

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Nunavut diamond mine clean-up to proceed this year as planned Nunatsiaq News – January 3, 2017)

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/

INAC says no thanks to bid from junior miner to take over abandoned Jericho mine

The clean up of the old Jericho diamond mine will go ahead without a formal review this year despite a last ditch effort by a B.C.-based company to take over the assets and possibly restart the mine.

The Nunavut Impact Review Board issued a screening report Dec. 22 saying the federal government’s planned remediation and “stabilization” of the abandoned mine, about 260 km southeast of Kugluktuk, can move forward as planned this spring and summer so long as it follows 63 specific terms and conditions.

Those conditions address everything from the creation of the winter road to water use, waste disposal, fuel storage, wildlife disturbances and aircraft restrictions.

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De Beers abandons diamond search in northern Saskatchewan – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – December 26, 2016)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

The world’s largest diamond mining company says it is walking away from its search for the precious stones on a 43,000-acre property in northern Saskatchewan after several “targets” turned out to be magnetic minerals mixed with organic materials.

De Beers Canada Inc. started looking for kimberlite — a volcanic rock famous for containing diamonds — north of the decommissioned Cluff Lake uranium mine in June after optioning the property from Vancouver-based CanAlaska Uranium Ltd.

On Dec. 23, the companies said in a news release that De Beers was returning 100 per cent of the project to CanAlaska after drilling seven targets and concluding that all 85 targets on the property were related to the same magnetic minerals.

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[South Africa] Mining at 150 should be celebrated, not threatened yet again – by John Kane-Berman (Politicsweb.com – January 3, 2017)

http://www.politicsweb.co.za/

The year 2017 will be the 150th anniversary of the discovery of diamonds in South Africa. Actually, that may not be strictly accurate, as diamonds might have been discovered earlier although not put to commercial use. But the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange in 1867 sparked off mining all over the country.

It also sparked off many other things, including the first stock exchange in Africa in nearby Kimberley in 1881, where Cecil Rhodes consolidated thousands of small diggings. Another direct by-product of mining was two universities, those of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria, which originated in a school of mines in Kimberley.

Diamond mining begat gold mining, which begat coal mining, as the mines needed colossal amounts of energy. Railways had to be built, and the mines played a huge part in financing them. Mining, in short, turned South Africa from an agricultural into an industrial economy, whence it matured into one dominated by the service industries spawned by the needs of the mining and industrial sectors.

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