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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

Bloody diamonds entering the market now only 0.2% of global supply – by Dylan Slater (MiningWeekly.com – December 2, 2016)

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The ban on diamond exports from conflict zones is proving successful in curbing so-called ‘conflict diamonds’ from being sold into official and black markets, thereby reducing their use as a potential source of finance for rebel groups.

This is according to nonprofit diamond industry representative organisation World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) president Ernie Blom.

He tells Mining Weekly that the Kimberley Process (KP), which has an interest in both domestic and international issues related to the mining and marketing of diamonds, has been “totally successful” in rooting out the international supply chain areas that are a source of conflict diamonds and blocking those channels. This has eliminated the appeal of operating directly, or by proxy, with those involved in sourcing diamonds from conflict zones.

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[Dominion Diamond] Bob Gannicott’s lasting legacy – by Alisha Hiyate (Northern Miner – November 18, 2016)

http://www.northernminer.com/

Robert Gannicott, the man who built Canada’s largest diamond mining company, Dominion Diamond (TSX: DDC; NYSE: DDC) and a pioneer of Canada’s diamond scene for 25 years, has died. Gannicott passed away on Aug. 3, at age 69, after a two-year battle with leukemia.

One of the first and most successful entrants into the Lac de Gras diamond rush in the Northwest Territories in the early 1990s, Gannicott is being remembered as a visionary and innovator, as well as for his vast contributions to Canada’s North.

With Grenville Thomas, he played an integral role at Aber Diamond in finding the Diavik mine. Gannicott then led the company through a series of transactions to become Dominion Diamond — the world’s third largest diamond miner after De Beers and Alrosa.

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Man-made diamonds, though more affordable, pose challenges on Jewelers Row – by Ally Marotti (Chicago Tribune – November 23, 2016)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/

There is a 3-carat diamond waiting for Tammy Borg at a shop on Jewelers Row, one that’s so big it’ll nearly cover the width of her finger. She and her soon-to-be fiance spent weeks hunting for the perfect diamond for her engagement ring, and finally found it at Mon Ami Jewelry. The diamond has a few flaws, Borg said, but to her, it’s perfectly imperfect.

“I would’ve never considered anything other than (a natural diamond),” she said. Jewelers are noticing a change in that blind devotion toward the gemstone in its natural form.

Technology has allowed man-made diamonds to become so similar to mined diamonds that they’re working their way into the jewelry market, for better or worse, with some budget-conscious shoppers requesting them as a cheaper alternative.

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First cluster of diamonds to be auctioned from Quebec mine – by Nicolas Van Praet (Globe and Mail – November 21, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

MONTREAL — Stornoway Diamond Corp. is selling its first cluster of Quebec gemstones this week, the introductory auction of what it believes will be a strong market for its diamonds in the years ahead as overall industry supply begins to dwindle.

The Longueuil, Que.-based producer will test the value of its initial batch of diamonds on the open market in Antwerp, Belgium, in a multiday sale ending Nov. 23. Stornoway said it will sell about 91,000 carats of gemstones in roughly two dozen lots arranged by size and quality in a tender process organized by diamond broker Bonas Group. The best offer takes each lot.

“We won’t try and overthink our marketing,” said Matt Manson, Stornoway president and chief executive officer. “We’ll be price takers, within reason. If we get a crazy low price for something, we also have the right to not sell.”

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What do Chinese millennials want? De Beers hopes to boost market for N.W.T. diamonds – by Mitch Wiles (CBC News North – November 17, 2016)

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

With slower economic growth in China and millennials marrying later in life, the diamond industry is looking closer at what millennials want, how they purchase, and why. According to the 2016 Diamond Insight Report from De Beers, total global diamond jewelry sales fell from $81 billion US in 2014, to $79 billion US in 2015.

The report defines millennials as people born between 1981 and 2000. Chinese millennials represented 68 per cent of that country’s total diamond jewelry purchases. There are 421 million millennials living in China.

Tom Ormsby, head of external and corporate affairs for De Beers Canada, highlighted findings of the report in Yellowknife on Tuesday, at the 44th Annual Geoscience Forum. De Beers operates the Gahcho Kue diamond mine 280 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.

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Venezuela rejoins global anti-‘blood diamonds’ group – by Girish Gupta (Reuters U.S. – November 18, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

CARACAS – Venezuela has rejoined an international pact to curtail the smuggling of conflict diamonds, vowing to resume issuing export certificates to guarantee the minerals are not being used to finance war or violent activity.

The minerals-rich South American country stopped issuing export certificates in 2005 and unilaterally removed itself three years later as an active participant in the Kimberley Process. The international pact was set up in 2003 to curtail the diamond smuggling that was fueling civil wars in Africa, popularized as “blood diamonds.”

Members of Kimberley met this week in the United Arab Emirates and unanimously agreed to reincorporate the nation, the Venezuelan government said on Friday, in a potential boost to the OPEC country’s struggling economy.

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Leonardo DiCaprio and synthetics irritate the diamond industry – by Frank Kane (The National – November 15, 2016)

http://www.thenational.ae/

Mention of the name Leonardo DiCaprio tends not to go down too well at meetings of the Kimberley Process, the organisation set up to stop conflict diamonds getting into the global trading chain.

Ever since the 2006 movie Blood Diamond, when DiCaprio played a tough African mercenary with a heart of gold, the Hollywood actor has been regarded by the gems business as a do-gooding liberal pinko who has given the industry a bad name as rapacious exploiters bent on extracting the last carat of value, regardless of the ­human cost.

The KP “family” (as it calls itself) points out that the industry set up the organisation well before DiCaprio’s movie, and was cleaning up its act even before he delivered such lines as: “will God ever forgive us for what we’ve done to each other?”

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After 25 years, the Ekati discovery still rocks the NWT, mining and the world of diamonds (Part 1 of 2) – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – November 2016)

http://resourceclips.com/

“You know, there’s something fishy going on around Lac de Gras.” Tom Hoefer remembers hearing that from a local mining guy who dropped by his Yellowknife office one autumn day in 1991. “At the time nobody really cared about Lac de Gras because that was granite country,” Hoefer explains.

But a visit to the mining recorder’s office showed someone staked “a huge block of ground, abnormally large. Doubly suspicious, I think it was registered to Norm’s Manufacturing or Norm’s Mattress Company or something. It was so bizarre. Someone was hiding something.”

Hoefer’s friend offered an explanation. “The only thing I think this could be for is diamonds.” He had previous experience with Monopros, De Beers’ Canadian exploration company. He was also an habitué of the Miner’s Mess, a YK cafe where industry rumours circulated as thickly as the cigarette smoke.

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Lac de Gras glitter became the backbone of the NWT economy (Part 2 of 2) – by Greg Klein (Resource Clips – November 2016)

http://resourceclips.com/

The greatest staking rush the world’s likely seen, a shakeup of the global diamond industry and a tremendous boost to Northwest Territories finances—all that started with the Ekati discovery announced by Chuck Fipke 25 years ago this week.

The effects on the NWT alone were momentous. The exploration sector boomed like never before, reaping four discoveries in six years that became working mines, while communities and individuals realized benefits both tangible and intangible.

Exploration fervour “certainly caused an injection into the economy,” notes Tom Hoefer, NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines executive director. “But where it really made a difference was when we had mines developed.”

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Happy Couples Don’t Buy Diamonds Online the Way They Used To – by Polly Mosendz (Bloomberg News – November 7, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

A diamond is no longer forever. It’s until you get sick of it, list it for sale online, and buy another one.

Modern expectations for engagement rings have proven more fluid than the future heirlooms sought by earlier generations. Just like virtually every other purchase, diamond rings frequently change hands online, far from a loupe-holding jeweler. It’s still a shaky time for the diamond industry, but the ring market on EBay has grown 58 percent over the last five years, and digital jewelry consignment has become safer and more popular.

This moment of transition makes it particularly interesting to note what happened on Monday to the longtime pioneer in online diamond sales. Blue Nile Inc., which began selling diamonds online in 1999 and went public in 2004, canceled its third-quarter earnings call to announce instead an agreement to be acquired by Bain Capital Private Equity and Bow Street LLC. The all-cash deal values the diamond seller at about $500 million, about 34 percent over Blue Nile’s Friday afternoon closing price.

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Diamond mining company moving head office to Calgary – Reid Southwick (Calgary Herald – November 7, 2016)

http://calgaryherald.com/

A company that operates a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories is relocating its corporate head office to Calgary in a move it says will save $19 million a year.

Dominion Diamond Corp., which runs the Ekati mine and has a 40 per cent stake in the Diavik mine northeast of its current head office in Yellowknife, said the move is part of wider efforts to cut costs.

The company, which plans to lay off workers as part of the move, said 75 per cent of its annual savings will come from lower labour costs, while the rest will come from reduced office rents, among other savings.

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Diamond mines give economic sparkle to Canada’s North – by Deirdre Kelly (Globe and Mail – November 3, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Forevermark U.S. organized and paid for the writer’s trip. The company had no input on the content of the article.

JAMES BAY LOWLANDS, ONT. — The giant hole in the ground, visible several kilometres away from the vantage point of a jet-propelled plane, looks empty and cold, a desolate no-man’s land.

But as the tiny aircraft closes in, descending on a nearby airstrip, the lunar-like crater can be seen pulsing with life. People scurry below on foot or in trucks and behind forklifts. The Victor mine, located on a stretch of boggy muskeg in Northern Ontario, is a hive of activity. The open pit yields diamonds, among the best in the world. It also provides jobs.

Hundreds of the jobs have been taken up by Canadians as well as foreigners from as far away as South Africa, one outpost of London-based diamond giant De Beers SA, which has been operating Ontario’s first diamond mine in the James Bay Lowlands since 2008.

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A 300% Rally That Has Investors Questioning Anglo’s Plan to Sell – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg News – October 26, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

When a company quadruples in value over nine months, it’s unusual for the biggest investors to say management has the wrong strategy. But that’s exactly what’s happening with Anglo American Plc, the mining company that is the U.K.’s best-performing blue-chip stock this year.

In February, Anglo was reeling from a broad slump in commodities that sent its shares to an all-time low and compounded a mountain of debt. To stanch the bleeding, the company proposed selling more than half its assets, including coal and iron-ore mines that had plunged in value. Almost as soon as the plan was announced, prices began recovering, so much so that investors including top shareholder Public Investment Corp. urged executives to reconsider.

“The desperation levels are not there anymore,” said Hanre Rossouw, a Cape Town-based fund manager at Investec Asset Management, whose investments include Anglo shares.

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Quebec’s first diamond mine marks a milestone in the Plan Nord program – by Damon van der Linde (Financial Post – October 26, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

LAC LAGOPÈDE, Que. — Stornoway Diamond Corp. CEO Matt Manson stands over a glass display case containing piles of shimmering stones destined for rings and necklaces around the world. The diamonds are sorted by size, colour and shape, and using a pair of tweezers, Manson picks up one of the biggest: a clear eight-sided stone estimated to be worth more than $100,000.

“Diamonds are a mined product that people use to commemorate the most important personal moments of their lives,” he said at the recent inauguration of the Renard mine in north-central Quebec. Although the entire 20,000 carat haul could fit inside a wedding party punch bowl, it took 450 workers six days to produce and is valued between $3 million and $5 million.

The piles of gems were not only to display the potential of Quebec’s first diamond mine — they also represent the initial spoils of the provincial government’s Plan Nord initiative.

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De Beers spending more on South African diamond exploration – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – October 24, 2016)

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/ 

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diamond mining company De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) is spending more on exploration as it searches for a new diamond mine to augment its two existing South African diamond mines – Venetia, in Limpopo province, and Voorspoed, in the Free State.

DBCM CEO Phillip Barton, who spoke to Mining Weekly Online on the sidelines of last week’s Oppenheimer De Beers Group Research Conference, said exploration expenditure had been increased from R30-million a year to R40-million a year, and that the company was prepared to spend more should it be warranted. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video).

“We’re still very positive around South Africa and our exploration activities continue, but it is looking like that needle in a haystack,“ he said, adding that the combination of brownfield and greenfield exploration under way was making use of the abundance of the geological information at the company’s disposal.

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