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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

Inside the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Diamond Mines – by Aryn Baker (Time Magazine – August 27, 2015)

http://time.com/

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, almost all diamond mining is done by hand. It’s a labor-intensive process that requires hauling away layers of dirt and rock, sometimes 50 feet deep, to expose ancient beds of gravel where the crystals are found. Miners then wash and sift that gravel one shovelful at a time in search of tiny glints of light that might be a diamond.

If they are lucky, a peppercorn-size crystal could fetch them a few dollars, once the mine owner gets his take. In New York’s diamond district such a gem, cut and polished, would be worth several hundred dollars.

Lynsey Addario and I journeyed to the heart of Congo’s diamond mining district in August to report on an $81.4 billion industry that links the miners of Tshikapa with the glittering salesrooms of the world’s jewelry retailers.

It was an arduous trip, one that required an internal flight on an airline that has been blacklisted by the European Union for its shaky safety record, followed by long 4×4 drives on red dirt tracks down to the mining sites.

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Where the Dead Become Diamonds – by Roc Morin (The Atlantic – October 14, 2015)

http://www.theatlantic.com/

A Swiss company wants to change the way people mourn by transforming the remains of their loved ones into gems.

“When a man of 80 kilos is cremated, he becomes 2.5 kilos of ashes,” Rinaldo Willy explained. “With these ashes, we make a diamond of 0.2 grams, smaller than a button on your shirt. How heavy is the soul—if we have a soul?”

In its coupling of the tangible and intangible, it is a question that epitomizes Willy’s work. Every year, Algordanza, the company he founded in 2004, receives more than 800 urns filled with human ashes. For between $5,000 and $20,000, the contents of each parcel are transformed into a diamond.

It is also more than a diamond. “Maybe ‘soul’ is too strong of a word,” Willy continued, still struggling to define the essence of his product. “Our process is purely physical—but if the deceased had blue eyes, and the diamond turns out blue, you can be sure that the family will say, ‘Oh, it’s exactly the color of his eyes.’”

We were sitting on the cool leather couches of Algordanza’s simple reception room in the sleepy town of Chur, Switzerland.

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Gemfields’ ray of sunshine in depressed resource sector – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – July 23, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Miner’s ruby deposit in Mozambique described as ‘potentially one of the most exciting discoveries in Africa in decades’.

LONDON – In the current resource investment climate it is reassuring to see an announcement from a gemstones miner, which would seem to offer great growth potential and whose stock price performance is bucking the general resource stocks trend. Indeed it might even be doing rather better if the sentiment for resource stocks in general wasn’t quite so depressed.

The miner is London AIM-listed Gemfields (GEM), effectively controlled by Brian Gilbertson’s Pallinghurst Resources Fund (named after a road in exclusive Johannesburg suburb Westcliff close to where Gilbertson used to have his home).

Gemfields’ assets include the 75%-owned Kagem emerald mine in Zambia and the Fabergé brand name, as well as a similar sized interest in the Montepuez ruby deposit located in the Montepuez district of Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique. The company has just announced what looks to be a highly positive resource and economic assessment of the latter.

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Lutsel K’e First Nation says board caved to De Beers in Snap Lake decision – by Guy Quenneville (CBC News North – June 26, 2015)

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

First Nation’s land manager says De Beers issued ‘ultimatum’ to board to have dissolved solids limit increased

The manager of environment for the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation (LKDFN) says the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board has caved in to pressure from De Beers Canada, the owner of the N.W.T.’s Snap Lake diamond mine.

On Thursday, the board recommended changes to De Beers’ water licence for Snap Lake — changes that De Beers hopes will make it easier for the company to manage a higher than expected volume of underground water rich in total dissolved solids, and which, according to the company, are needed to keep the mine from closing prematurely.

But Peter Unger, the manager of wildlife, lands and environment for the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation, says De Beers is just playing hardball to get what it wants

“It’s very difficult to not see that as a form of threat, really,” said Unger. “That is one of the things that disturbs us: the mining company was able to come in and basically issue an ultimatum to the board. And it kind of looks like that ultimatum worked.”

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Uncertain future for global diamond trade as profits vanish – by Tova Cohen and Ari Rabinovitch (Reuters U.S. – June 24, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

TEL AVIV – The family businesses that make up the global diamond trade have seen their profits wiped out over the past five years, hit by shaky financing, increased costs and uncertain demand from customers who prefer hi-tech gadgets to bling.

Manufacturers who cut and polish diamonds have found themselves caught between giant mining companies charging high prices for rough stones, and big retail chains that demand gems at low margins to keep sales moving.

While the $80 billion overall spent on diamond jewelry last year was a record, the manufacturers are expected to share a profit of just $100 million in 2015. That is half last year’s total and down from $900 million in 2010, according to Chaim Even-Zohar of Tacy Ltd and Pranay Narvekar of Pharos Beam in Mumbai, two of the industry’s top consultants.

Even-Zohar estimated that 300,000 Chinese and Indian workers had been laid off out of nearly 1 million employed in gemcutting in those two countries, where most manufacturing takes place.

“The rule of supply and demand doesn’t necessarily apply to the diamond sector,” said Yoram Dvash, a high-end polisher in Israel who outsources his rough stones to smaller Israeli polishers.

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[Diamonds in Saskatchewan] New Frontiers: ‘Looking far into the future’ – by Joel Schlesinger (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – May 21, 2015)

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/index.html

Saskatchewan is a diamond in the rough — literally. The province has long been a global player in uranium and potash mining. And diamond mining might someday be added to the list.

In fact, the province has experienced a bit of a ‘diamond rush’ in the northeast thanks to a promising find near La Ronge, called the Pikoo Diamond Project.

“The samples are some of the best ever found in Canada; even better than the Point Lake discovery that launched the country’s diamond mining industry,” says Nick Thomas, with North Arrow Minerals, an exploration firm with the largest stake in the area.

“The Achilles heel is the size of the discovery — it’s smaller than others in Canada, but we’re still learning about it, and it did add a lot of excitement at a bleak time in the exploration sector.” Already many very junior exploration firms are staking claims around North Arrow’s find, hoping to discover more deposits.

The heightened diamond activity comes at a time when exploration spending across Canada is down significantly from previous years. In 2011, according to data released by Natural Resources Canada (NRC), firms spent $4.2 billion in Canada on exploration.

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Inside the secret, intricate world of diamonds – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 14, 2015)

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

Cash only, hyper-secure world where very few know how stones are priced

“If you think platinum or gold is secret. It doesn’t hold a candlelight to diamonds,” says a smiling Ron Gashinski, retired Ontario geologist and one of the lead players to set up a controversial diamond royalty in the province.

“No one touches the diamonds. Not even the people cleaning them. They have to put their hands in a glove box,” says Gashinski. “The daily production is in a thermos, about the size of a Tim Horton’s coffee, and a guy with gloves hits a keypad so a door opens, and this arm puts the diamonds into a vault.”

Ontario’s only diamond mine, north of Attiwapiskat, is part of a high stakes, and secret world of diamonds. From the way the stones are stored, valued, and shipped around the world, the De Beers Victor mine is a piece of an intricate global puzzle. Everything is precise, and hyper-calculated.

“There are no accidents,” says Gashinski. “It is a strange business. A cash business. Before anyone can buy those diamonds from De Beers, they have to put cash in the bank. There are no lines of credit. It’s a built in ‘I trust you when the money is in the bank, up until then these are my diamonds.'”

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Diamond cutting takes tenuous hold in Sudbury, Ont. – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 14, 2015)

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

Community leaders say too many jobs were filled by outsiders

The future of diamond-cutting in Sudbury, Ont., remains unclear as De Beer’s Victor mine is set to operate only for the next four years, removing its highest quality supplier of stones.

Retired Ontario gemmologist Ron Gashinski says the government fought hard for a ‘beneficiation’ agreement with De Beers to ensure that at least 10 per cent of the diamonds harvested from the Victor mine would be cut and polished in Canada.

Many of the diamonds that are cut and polished at the Crossworks facility in Sudbury come from De Beers Victor mine, Ontario’s first and only diamond mine; a remote operation that’s a one-and-a-half hour direct charter flight north of Timmins.

“It’s like you’re only getting Dom Perignon. You’re not getting the Baby Duck,” enthuses Dylan Dix, an executive for Crossworks.

“You have such a high level of gem quality. It’s essentially an anomaly,” says Dix. “Such wonderful, beautiful diamond crystals. It’s quite a pleasure to polish them.”

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A mug full of diamonds: A reporter’s notebook from the Victor mine – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 13, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business

Only way to get to Ontario’s only diamond mine, 1,100 km due north of Toronto, is by plane

“It’s one of the most beautiful places up here. You can see rock islands. You can see moose,” says Terry Ternes, environmental manager at Ontario’s only diamond mine, located in the James Bay lowlands.

“The Attawapiskat River is gorgeous in the summer ime. Just majestic,” Ternes adds. We’re overlooking the water, at the company’s treatment plant, and the view is breathtaking, even with the snow falling and a bitter whipping wind.

Ternes is in charge of reclaiming the land when the De Beers mine closes in four years. His work includes collecting seeds and cones from area trees to replant. His team is also tracking caribou that migrate around the region.

“I’m a farm boy from Saskatchewan. I farm. This is no different,” Ternes says. “When we leave here, this land is going to be in the same shape as we found it.” Ontario environmental commissioner Gord Miller says De Beers has the best data on caribou in Northern Ontario. The company has been monitoring the herds for several years and is providing good baseline biological data.

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How CBC found the secret diamond royalty – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 12, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business

For Rita Celli’s Ontario Today program on diamond mining, click here: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/ontariotoday_20150512_18140.mp3

Ontario government breaches its own confidentiality rules to explain royalties for salt and diamonds

For stones prized for their brilliance and clarity, the true value of Ontario’s only diamond mine was murky — until the CBC investigation.

The Michener-Deacon Fellowship for Investigative Journalism allowed me the time to dive into Ontario’s opaque accounting.

For months, no one in the Ontario government or De Beers Canada would answer whether if, when, or how much of the legislated royalty was paid.

Both the current and a former provincial mines minister told CBC that the diamond royalty must be kept confidential. Preserving secrecy is spelled out in the Ontario Mining Act. Here’s how this mystery started to unravel.

I studied a variety of corporate and public accounts searching for an answer. At some point along the way, I figured out that three Ontario ministries collect a version of mining profits tax or royalties.

From a number of sources, I determined that the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM) collects a royalty on salt.

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Diamond royalties a closely guarded secret in Ontario – by Rita Celli (CBC News Business – May 12, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business

For Rita Celli’s Ontario Today program on diamond mining, click here:http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/ontariotoday_20150512_18140.mp3

CBC News investigation reveals government royalties from diamonds totalled $226 last year

Ontario’s only diamond mine is known for its exceptional quality stones, but according to official documents, the provincial government made more money on salt royalties in 2013-14 than diamonds.

De Beers Canada, which owns the only diamond mine in the province, paid $226 in royalties while salt netted the province $3.89 million in royalties.

The diamond royalty stirred a huge debate when the Ontario government suddenly introduced it in 2007. Then-premier Dalton McGuinty promised it would enrich all Ontarians. He promised the money would be used to hire more nurses and keep class sizes small in schools.

The real value has been a closely guarded secret, by government and the company, until the CBC-Michener-Deacon investigation. That secrecy has baffled many experts consulted by the CBC, including accountants, and auditors.

“It’s hard to believe that in a jurisdiction like Ontario there would be this lack of transparency,” says Paul Zimnisky, an independent diamond analyst, based in New York.

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Press Release: Antwerp Strengthens Ties With Canadian Miners (May 8, 2015)

https://www.awdc.be/en/homepage

Press Release: Canada is the third-largest diamond producer in the world and one of the most important suppliers of rough diamonds to Antwerp. Last week, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), spearheaded by governor Cathy Berx, traveled to Montreal, Toronto and Yellowknife. The meetings with mining company Stornoway Diamond Corp. provided strong indications the company is considering to commercialize its entire production from the Renard mine in Quebec through Antwerp.

Stornoway is the first producer to exploit a mining area in the Canadian province of Quebec. The Renard mine is expected to yield 1.6 million carats of diamonds annually, with a value of $304 million and production estimated to hit the market as of the second half of 2017. If the Renard production is marketed in Antwerp, the share of rough diamonds from Canada on the Antwerp market could increase by 64 percent.

As trade center and diamond producer, Antwerp and Canada have always maintained a close relationship because of the quality demands that both implement with regard to transparency, ethical values and observance of national and international standards.

In recent years, Canada has undergone significant changes with regard to diamond mining.  Ari Epstein, the CEO of the AWDC, said, “A number of legislative changes have ensured that the regional and local authorities, such as the Northwest Territories, have obtained wider competencies as concerns the mining industry.

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For De Beers, There’s a Diamond in the Mining Waste – by John W. Miller (Wall Street Journal – April 29, 2015)

http://www.wsj.com/

More miners are processing former waste rock as new deposits become harder to find

KIMBERLEY, South Africa—Every day De Beers sends trucks of waste rock through this celebrated mining town, part of its effort to squeeze the remaining diamonds out of the deposit that started the company in 1888.

De Beers, a unit of Anglo American PLC, is still the world’s biggest diamond miner, with operations in Namibia, Botswana, Canada and South Africa. The company stopped mining in Kimberley nine years ago, but as new deposits of the scarce mineral grows even harder to find, exploiting waste pits now represents a lucrative niche—and one that more miners are trying to tap.

Mining companies say processing tailings, as former waste rock is known, is increasingly becoming an economic imperative.

As miners have already plumbed some of the world’s richest deposits, grades of most metals and minerals have declined. That means processing already-mined tailings can be a more attractive proposition than traditional mining.

“Over the past century, the average copper grade has fallen to 1% from 4%, and production has gone up 16-fold,” says Ruban Yogarajah, a spokesman for BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company. “So every year, it gets harder and harder.”

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De Beers toughens rules for diamond customers – by James Wilson and Avantika Chilkoti (Financial Times – March 29, 2015)

http://www.ft.com/intl/companies/mining

De Beers is making the biggest reforms in more than a decade to the way it sells most of its diamonds, amid concerns over the financial stability and transparency of some of its best customers.

The diamond group, which sells $6bn of unpolished diamonds annually and is the world’s largest supplier by value, is introducing tougher rules for companies wanting to join its coveted group of customers known as “sightholders”.

Under the new rules, expected to be announced this week, sightholders will have to present their accounts according to international standards. De Beers will also insist customers hold a specified proportion of equity in their businesses, making them less reliant on bank borrowing.

De Beers sells about 90 per cent of its mined output to sightholders, which play a vital role in the diamond trade, cutting and polishing rough stones and channelling them into global jewellery markets.

Only about 80 companies — most from traditional diamond trading and polishing centres such as Antwerp, Israel or India — are approved by De Beers to become sightholders and take part in regular sales, or “sights”, each year where they buy rough stones.

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Global diamond jewellery demand hits record $81bn – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – March 20, 2015)

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

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Global demand for diamond jewellery grew 3% to a record $81-billion in 2014, De Beers said on Friday, while pointing out a slower last-quarter pace of growth across the luxury goods category in both the US and China, the biggest and second–biggest diamond-jewellery markets respectively.

De Beers diamond industry insight data, which was released at midnight, shows that the top five diamond markets – which make up 75% of total sales – all grew in currency terms and that the momentum should continue through 2015 (Also see Creamer Media TV video attached).

“It was another strong year for diamond jewellery demand across the world, as we saw continued growth across both mature and quickly developing markets,” De Beers CEO Philippe Mellier commented in a media release to Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online.

The US, as the world’s largest market, last year represented 46% of total diamond jewellery sales, after leaping 7% higher to $37-billion, with China at a 5%-higher $10-billion in second spot.

Including Hong Kong and Macau, the Chinese market now represents 14% of the total value of the global diamond jewellery market.

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