Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood – Page 49

Buying diamonds this festive season? Bigger is better – by Prinesha Naidoo (Mineweb.com – November 12, 2015)

November 13, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Industry’s woes have all but wiped out the value of large diamonds.

JOHANNESBURG – The global diamond industry appears to be in a precarious position with weak consumer demand, a supply overhang and a credit crunch among rough diamond traders weighing on prices.

According to various reports, rough diamond prices have decreased more than 12% this year alone. The RapNet Diamond Index (see table above) reveals prices for polished stones between 0.3 carats (ct.) and 3 ct. and reveal how prices have plummeted between January 1 and November 1 this year.

Similarly, data from PriceScope (see chart below) shows the average price of stones between 0 and 0.5 ct. are now lower than at any point during the financial crisis.

As with industrial commodities, much of the decline in diamond prices has been blamed on slowing economic growth in China, the world’s second largest consumer of diamonds after the United States.

Hong Kong tycoon buys record $48.5 million ‘blue moon’ diamond for 7-year-old daughter – by Kelvin Chan and Jamey Keaten (Associated Press/Toronto Star – November 13, 2015)

November 13, 2015

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Convicted billionaire property developer Joseph Lau spent a total of $77 million on two rare diamonds for his 7-year-old daughter Josephine at Geneva auctions.

GENEVA—A Hong Kong billionaire tycoon paid a total of $77 million (U.S.) at auctions in Geneva for two large and rare coloured diamonds for his 7-year-old daughter Josephine — and renamed them after her, his office said Thursday.

Joseph Lau was the top bidder for the 12.03-carat “Blue Moon” diamond that sold Wednesday night for a record-setting 48.6 million Swiss francs ($48.5 million U.S.), said a spokeswoman for Lau, who declined to give her name. Sotheby’s said the buyer promptly renamed the pricier gem “The Blue Moon of Josephine.”

Flawless 12 carat Blue Moon Diamond sells for world record $48.4m in Geneva (Reuters/The Guardian – November 11, 2015)

November 12, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/

The rare and flawless Blue Moon Diamond sold for $48.4m on Wednesday, setting a world record for a gemstone at auction, Sotheby’s said.

The cushion-shaped diamond, mounted on a ring, has the top grading of fancy vivid blue and weighs 12.03 carats. It had a pre-sale estimate of $35m to $55m.

“It is a new record price for any gemstone and per carat,” David Bennett, worldwide chairman of Sotheby’s international jewellery division, told a packed showroom in Geneva that erupted into applause.

Was Billionaire Steinmetz Betrayed by CEO Over Diamond Mine? – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg News – November 12, 2015)

November 12, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The prize is a chunk of African earth that yields some of the most valuable diamonds on the planet for premium jeweler Tiffany & Co.

The fight for the Koidu mine in Sierra Leone pits embattled Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz and his BSG Resources Ltd. against a government struggling to revive an economy crippled by the global commodities slump and Ebola’s deadliest outbreak ever.

But waiting in the wings are two high-profile bankers and a star of “The Hunger Games” movie franchise who are keen to buy the asset. Add to the plot a secret recording of Steinmetz’s now-former point man for the project and what appears is a story of betrayal that offers a rare glimpse into the ways natural resources companies operate in some of the world’s poorest countries.

“I’m taking off my BSGR hat here,” the chief executive officer of Steinmetz’s BSGR, Brett Richards, told an August meeting of officials in Freetown, including Mines and Mineral Resources Minister Minkailu Mansaray.

10 billionaires and Leonardo DiCaprio just invested in a startup that claims it can grow hundreds of real diamonds in 2 weeks – by Alyson Shontell (Business Insider – November 11, 2015)

November 11, 2015

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Diamond Foundry has spent the last three years quietly working on an ambitious project.

The Santa Clara startup, created by Nanosolar founder Martin Roscheisen, wanted to grow “real” diamonds in a lab. Unlike synthetic diamonds, these would be hatched from a sliver of a natural, mined diamond as the substrate.

After two years of experiments with failed diamond-growing reactors, Roscheisen’s team says it cracked the code. Now the company claims to be able to grow hundreds of diamonds that are up to nine carats in just two weeks in a lab.

The breakthrough was enough to convince ten billionaires and members of Silicon Valley tech royalty to invest.

Borrowing From Solar and Chip Tech to Make Diamonds Faster and Cheaper – by John Markoff (New York Times – November 11, 2015)

November 11, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

Just a decade ago, Silicon Valley had high hopes of becoming a vibrant manufacturing center, making solar panels. But price competition from abroad, particularly China, quickly dashed those dreams.

And so the founders of Nanosolar, one of the largest start-ups, began exploring ways to build to apply their expertise to new technologies.

On Wednesday, a group of engineers and scientists, led by a founder of Nanosolar, R. Martin Roscheisen, will announce that it has developed an advanced approach to making diamonds, using technology derived in part from making silicon chips and solar cells.

The first synthetic diamond processes appeared in the early 1950s, and the commercialization of manufacturing diamonds has grown to the point that at least 10 companies now make either commercial or industrial diamonds.

But the Diamond Foundry claims to have made proprietary breakthroughs that will make it possible to manufacture high quality diamonds more quickly and cost effectively than existing technologies.

Diamonds Aren’t Forever for Botswana as Mining Boom Fades – by Michael Cohen (Bloomberg News – November 5, 2015)

November 5, 2015

http://www.bloomberg.com/

The honeymoon is over in Botswana, where the diamond industry that led the world has fallen on hard times.
The discovery of the gems nearly half a century ago transformed the southern African nation from a dusty farming backwater into one of the continent’s wealthiest societies.

Thousands of miles of dirt roads were paved and schools and clinics built in every town. The capital, Gaborone, once a rural village, is now dotted with office blocks and malls occupied by South African chains like Shoprite Holdings Ltd. The country’s finances were in such good shape that Botswana earned the highest credit rating in Africa.

Now the diamond mining industry is floundering as jewelry sales stagnate amid a slowdown in China. An index of rough diamond prices hit a five-year low last month. With most diamonds near the surface having been extracted from Botswana’s mines, the gems are also becoming increasingly inaccessible.

Last year Botswana was overtaken by Russia as the world’s top producer.

How Diamonds Became Forever – by J. Courtney Sullivan (New York Times – May 3, 2013)

November 2, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/

Peggy Olson, that emblem of the pioneering ad woman in a man’s world on the television show “Mad Men,” would have been all of 8 years old on the night in 1947 when the real-life copywriter Frances Gerety coined the phrase “A Diamond Is Forever.”

As Ms. Gerety recalled in a 1988 interview with a co-worker, Howard Davis, she had just finished a series of ads and was headed to bed when she realized that she had forgotten to create a signature line. Exhausted, she said “Dear God, send me a line,” and scribbled something on a slip of paper. When she woke up and saw what she had written, she thought it was just O.K. A few hours later, she presented her idea at a meeting. According to her, “Nobody jumped.”

When Ms. Gerety applied to work at the Philadelphia advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Son in 1943, she was told that her timing was perfect: the agency had just lost a female copywriter.

Why is beneficiation in the diamond industry failing? – by Nastassia Arendse (Mineweb.com – October 28, 2015)

October 28, 2015

http://www.mineweb.com/

Legislation has become a defining feature of the investment regime and is now a liability.

A beautiful parcel of rough diamonds lies across the table as Ilan Kaplan, Vice Chairman of the Diamond Manufacturers Association shares the story behind the issues faced by a typical beneficiator.

The audience at the Diamond Indaba looks on while he explains that apart from the sourcing of diamonds, one of the issues is finding a manufacturer. One has a choice of using an operation that is either based in Johannesburg (a state-of-the-art operation) or in neighbouring Southern Africa. Once you have sourced the goods, you have to pay VAT on your purchase.

Yes, you might get the VAT back in maybe 60 or 90 days, but it will have a major cash flow impact on your business. This reduces your further purchasing ability if another opportunity arises in the interim.

Kaplan says that 30% of the diamonds on the table cannot be manufactured profitably.

Canada’s once-booming Arctic diamond sector loses luster – by Susan Taylor (Reuters Canada – October 27, 2015)

November 3, 2015October 27, 2015

http://ca.reuters.com/

YELLOWKNIFE, Northwest Territories (Reuters) – A decline in diamond prices because of lower growth in Chinese jewelry demand is dulling the appeal of Canada’s Arctic diamond industry, with the resulting drop in exploration hurting the region’s long-term prospects.

Exploration spending in Canada’s diamond-rich Northwest Territories (NWT), the world’s third-biggest producer, is forecast to drop 54 percent this year, according to a Canadian government estimate earlier this year. That is bad news for an industry where even profitable deposits can take 10 to 20 years to develop into a mine.

“It’s worrisome,” said Tom Hoefer, executive director of NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, which is based in Yellowknife, the territories’ economic hub and capital. “Exploration is the lifeblood of mining.”

Once the engine for booming diamond demand, the growth in China’s appetite for polished gems has slowed alongside its economy.

Anglo American-owned De Beers, the world’s top producer by value, expects 3-5 percent sales growth in China this year for its polished diamonds.

India a factor in diamond trade migration from Antwerp to Dubai – by Kunal Bose (Business Standard – October 26, 2015)

October 26, 2015

http://www.business-standard.com/

Earlier, the rough diamond cutting and polishing business had moved from Antwerp to Surat in Gujarat and a few other places, due to cost considerations

For gem traders and jewellery makers over the world, Dubai remains an important trade centre for pearls. But, of late, a growing portion of trade in rough diamonds is getting shifted from the Belgian port city of Antwerp to Dubai, a constituent of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Earlier, the rough diamond cutting and polishing business had moved from Antwerp to Surat in Gujarat and a few other places, due to cost considerations.

Business in rough, is now being squeezed out of the diamond district of Antwerp, which accommodates a World Diamond Centre and four trading exchanges, as dealers are finding it difficult to get bank funding. The big blow to dealers there, mostly Jews and Indians, came when Antwerp Diamond Bank (ADB) started the process of winding up operations globally, leaving a big gap in trade funding.

ADB used to make available around $1.5 billion to the trade. Also, toughening of banking regulations and non-governmental organisations doubting the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process Certification scheme (KPCS) in stopping all ‘blood diamonds’ finding their way into the legal market have made some other banks curb lending to the trade.

Inside De Beers’s Hunt for Africa’s Elusive Diamonds – by Scott Patterson (Wall Street Journal – October 23, 2015)

November 3, 2015October 26, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/

In Kalahari Desert, miner attempts to uncover next big discovery—without which the industry faces diminishing output

KALAHARI DESERT, Botswana—Crouching in the sun-scorched sand, De Beers geologist Charles Skinner picked up an ashy, white cylinder of rock and looked for shimmering evidence that an ancient volcano was sitting below his feet, containing billions of dollars’ worth of diamonds.

Mr. Skinner is at the vanguard of a new effort by diamond merchant De Beers to uncover the first major diamond mine in at least 20 years. De Beers last year launched an early-stage exploration push, focusing on the desert of southwest Botswana.

De Beers’ undertaking highlights the dilemma faced by diamond miners, who are forecasting diminishing supplies if they don’t discover new caches of gems. Only a blockbuster discovery will enable them to keep long-term production at current levels, according to De Beers and analysts.

Documentary film looks at effects of mine on Attawapiskat – by Tanya Talaga (Toronto Star – October 22, 2015)

November 3, 2015October 22, 2015

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

What is it like for a northern First Nations community to live beside a diamond mine?

Documentary filmmaker Victoria Lean zeroes in on what it is like for the Attawapiskat First Nation to be neighbours with the Victor diamond mine in her film After the Last River.

The Victor mine, owned by global mining giant De Beers, is just 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat, a community in James Bay District that has battled floods, an ongoing housing crisis and a massive diesel spill underneath an old school.

Lean set out to tell a story about the consequences of mining in one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the North, and in doing so she unearthed the challenges of a community struggling to exist.

Now Oppenheimer properties edge out of De Beers’ Diamond Route – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – October 20, 2015)

November 3, 2015October 21, 2015

http://www.miningweekly.com/page/americas-home

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Oppenheimer family, which three years ago sold out of diamond company De Beers, announced on Tuesday that it was delinking the properties of E Oppenheimer & Son from the Diamond Route, which takes in the 250 000 ha of cross-regional land that originally kept potential diamond thieves far away from diamond diggings, but which is today geared to conservation and ecotourism, incorporating new and largely undiscovered natural wonders, as well as historical and cultural elements.

In an opening address to the sixth Diamond Route research conference in Johannesburg, Nicky Oppenheimer, who launched the initiative at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 while chairperson of De Beers, said that long and hard thought had been put into separating “and it seems to me that this is the right time for the Oppenheimer properties to separate themselves from the Diamond Route”.

Oppenheimer emphasised that the decision was not being taken with any sense of conflict or anger but was the result of the “inevitable drifting apart that takes place when entities are no longer rubbing shoulders, joined at the hip”.

Anglo American slides on De Beers downturn fears – by Bryce Elder (Financial Times – October 19, 2015)

November 3, 2015October 20, 2015

http://www.ft.com/

Anglo American was Monday’s sharpest FTSE 100 faller on worries that its balance sheet strength will be tested by a downturn at De Beers, its most profitable division.

De Beers is likely to be the laggard when Anglo delivers its third-quarter production update on Thursday, said dealers.

The diamonds business, which accounted for nearly a third of Anglo’s first-half operating profit, has been under pressure as stone polishers run down inventories following a weak end to 2014.
Citigroup forecast Anglo’s diamond production by weight to have fallen 11 per cent against the previous quarter.

Over the same period rough diamond prices slipped as much as 10 per cent with demand squeezed by a strong dollar and a credit crunch among the polishers.