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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

[Manitoba] Let the diamond rush begin – by Martin Cash (Winnipeg Free Press – March 7, 2017)

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

Diamonds have been discovered in Manitoba for the first time in the province’s history, ending decades of speculation and opening up the possibility of a resurgence of diamond exploration.

An informal group of prospectors called the Lynx Consortium has found small micro-diamonds — less than one millimetre in diameter — in the Knee Lake region near Oxford House. The discovery comes after a brief flurry of diamond exploration in the province 15 years ago came up empty.

Ruth Bezys, the president of Manitoba Prospectors and Developer Association and the wife of Mark Fedikow, one of the prospectors who found the diamonds, said it is an exciting development.

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De Beers fights fakes with technology as China’s lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems – by Celine Ge (South China Morning Post – March 5, 2017)

http://www.scmp.com/

The spread of synthetic diamonds in China, originally designed for industrial purposes such as oil drilling, is posing such a threat to the global diamond market that it has forced dominant player De Beers to invest tens of millions of dollars on methods to identify the man-made stones that look exactly like the real thing.

A team of scientists at the mining giant are dedicated to fundamental research into the difference between synthetic and natural diamonds, while others work around the clock developing high-tech machines capable of screening out these tiny, “fake” gemstones, a popular investment among jewellery makers, particularly for those in China and India.

“They want to be confident in the diamonds they are buying for their business or selling to jewellery retailers,” Jonathan Kendall, president of De Beers’ International Institute of Diamond Grading and Research, told the South China Morning Post in an interview. For years, Kendall has led a team of researchers in London in the fight against synthetic diamonds being sold as real ones.

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Matt Manson our Mining Person of the Year – by John Cumming (Northern Miner – March 1, 2017)

http://www.northernminer.com/

There’s something to be said for being first. And Matt Manson, The Northern Miner’s choice as Mining Person of the Year for 2016, bears the distinction of guiding Stornoway Diamond through a daunting, decade-long journey to open Quebec’s first diamond mine — Renard — in the province’s remote Otish Mountains.

Along the way, through two industry downturns and without a major mining company as partner, Manson capably managed virtually every aspect of the mining game: property acquisition and company consolidation; grassroots exploration; feasibility studies and mine permitting; project financing; mine and infrastructure construction; community relations; building and leading a workforce; production ramp-up; and product marketing.

Manson, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, earned a B.Sc. degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1987, and came to Canada to pursue graduate studies and complete a PhD at the University of Toronto in 1996.

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De Beers new diamond mine set to reach full commercial production – by Barbara Lewis and Susan Taylor (Reuters U.K. – February 22, 2017)

http://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON/TORONTO – Gahcho Kue diamond mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories is set to reach full commercial production over the next six weeks, the heads of Anglo American (AAL.L) unit De Beers and its Canadian partner Mountain Province Diamonds MPV.TO said on Tuesday.

First diamond production at the Arctic mine, the world’s largest and highest grade new diamond mine, began last year and has been gradually ramping up.

Output will be an average of 4.5 million carats per year over the anticipated 13-year life of the mine in which operator De Beers has a 51 percent stake, with the rest held by Mountain Province Diamonds.

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Forget the ring: Lab-grown diamonds are a scientist’s best friend – by Sarah Kaplan (Washington Post – February 13, 2017)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

At a drab office park in a Washington suburb, in an unmarked building’s windowless lab, Yarden Tsach is growing diamonds.

Not rhinestones or cubic zirconia. Diamonds. Real ones. In a matter of eight weeks, inside a gas-filled chamber, he replicates a process that usually takes billions of years in the bowels of the planet. Carbon atom by carbon atom, he creates nature’s hardest, most brilliant and — if decades of advertisements are to be believed — most romantic stone.

No outsiders get to witness this genesis, though. WD Lab Grown Diamonds, where Tsach is chief technology officer, guards its approach as zealously as its address. These are the measures a company takes when it’s a target — of fierce competitors, potential jewel thieves and a traditional industry that would very much like it to go away.

“Everything is after us,” Tsach says. He doesn’t mean it as a joke.

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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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