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Diamonds – Mining, Lab-Grown and Conflict/Blood

Renard Diamond Mine to Be Repurposed for Lithium – by Leah Meirovich (Rapaport Magazine – April 4, 2024)

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Winsome Resources has signed an agreement to acquire the Renard diamond mine and its infrastructure, with plans to convert it into a processing facility for its Adina Lithium project. Subject to approval by a Quebec Court, Winsome will pay Renard owner Stornoway Diamonds a total of CAD 52 million ($38.5 million) in cash, shares in the company, or a combination of both, it said Wednesday.

The lithium miner will have until September 30 to gain approval, with the option to extend to February 28, 2025. Winsome will not assume any of Stornoway’s financial obligations other than mine rehabilitation, it noted. Stornoway will keep any remaining diamond inventory and equipment directly associated with diamond mining.

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Like Jewels, Will Travel – by Amy Elliot (New York Times – April 2, 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Gem- and jewelry-themed tours and excursions mix treasure hunting with adventure and cultural experiences.

Last year, when Roberto Ruiz visited the Carbonera mine in Querétaro, Mexico, he cracked open a grapefruit-size piece of rhyolite with a hammer. When he looked inside, “it was like finding a fire fossil,” he said during a recent phone interview from his home in San Antonio. Inside was an orangey-red fire opal that he likened to a flame, forever preserved in the sphere of igneous rock.

Mr. Ruiz and his wife, Erika Rodriguez, are among the few people who have traveled to the mine, a desolate spot located in Carbonera in central Mexico, a destination that’s well off the beaten tourist track, some 20 miles from the nearest city.

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Canada’s mild winter disrupts key ice road to remote Arctic diamond mines – by Divya Rajagopal (Reuters – March 30, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

TORONTO, March 30 (Reuters) – An unusually warm winter in Canada this year has delayed the opening of a 400-kilometer (250-mile) ice road that is rebuilt every year as the main conduit for Rio Tinto, Burgundy Mines, and De Beers to access their diamond mines in the remote Arctic region.

The Winter Road, which serves the region accessible only by air for 10 months of the year, opened with a two-week delay in the middle of February, disrupting movement of goods along the ice road built over 64 frozen lakes.

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Signet Says Shoppers Getting Wiser on Falling Lab-Grown Prices – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – March 21, 2024)

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Deep discounting by independent jewelry, especially on lab-grown, impacted Signet’s average transaction value in the fiscal fourth quarter that ended February 3, Drosos explained.

The retailer’s sales fell 6% year on year to $2.5 billion during the period, it reported Wednesday. The average transaction value slipped 0.6% in North America and slumped 10% in other regions as the jeweler sold some of its prestige watch locations.

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G7 Sanctions Will Harm Botswana’s Diamond Development, Officials Say – Avi Krawitz (Rapaport Magazine – March 20, 2024)

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The Group of Seven (G7) import restrictions targeting Russian diamonds will have a detrimental impact on Botswana’s diamond trade and may reverse the gains the country has made in recent years, government officials told Rapaport News.

The proposal to create a single-node location through which all diamonds should pass to verify G7 compliance would be a logistical nightmare for producer countries, Lefoko Moagi, Botswana’s minister of mineral resources, green technology, and energy security, said in an interview. “It creates added time in terms of processing our diamonds and it affects our beneficiation trajectory,” Moagi explained. “This may bring about added costs and unintended consequences that will affect the producer countries.”

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Synthetic Diamonds in the Spotlight – by Avi Krawitz (Rapaport Magazine – March 21, 2024)

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For the ring finger, for every finger, I put them everywhere… diamonds, diamonds, diamonds, diamonds,” sings a diverse and strikingly beautiful group of models, actors, and fashion influencers to jazzy music and the lyric “love and happiness” in the background on repeat.

Love and happiness are never enough, continues the advertisement, and “neither is one diamond” is its underlying message. “A girl’s best friend?” asks Pamela Anderson, and “diamonds are for everyone” and “for all the right reasons,” comes the answer, before Vogue magazine’s iconic creative director at large Grace Coddington concludes, “Diamonds for all,” and the tagline reveals: “Pandora: lab-grown diamonds.”

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Ice Cold: Exploring The Unique Relationship Between Hip Hop And Jewelry – Josh Wilson (Forbes Magazine – July 24, 2022)

https://www.forbes.com/

What goes through your mind when you see some of hip-hop’s heavy hitters sporting exorbitant jewelry everywhere they go? Do you think they’re just living their best life, or they’re being irresponsible with their money?

The world of hip-hop is unique in many ways. It is one of the most expressive art forms available today. It’s common, expected even, to see some of the biggest names in the genre donning expensive diamonds, gold studs, rings, bracelets, grills, and watches. And with shows like Youtube docuseries, “Ice Cold,” where stars like Migos, A$AP Rocky, Lil Baby, and French Montana show off their bling, it seems they’re clamoring for every opportunity to exhibit their collections.

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Four Questions the US Must Answer on Diamond Sanctions – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – March 10, 2024)

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A broader US ban on Russian diamonds went into effect on March 1, but uncertainty remains about key details.

Sanctions on Russian diamonds and diamond jewelry went into effect on March 1 across Group of Seven (G7) nations, expanding the ban to 1-carat and larger polished stones manufactured in a third country from Russian rough. Previously, goods “substantially transformed” (i.e., manufactured) in countries such as India were technically legal in the US. The US and other member countries have released information on how enforcement will work, but many questions remain.

US Customs and Border Protection has ordered importers to use a self-certification statement declaring that the diamonds are not Russian. This is likely a temporary measure while US authorities devise a way to enforce the rules.

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Diamond producers warn of pitfalls in G7’s Russia gem ban – by Henry Lazenby (Northern Miner – February 28, 2024)

https://www.northernminer.com/

The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) issued an open letter on Wednesday calling on the G7 nations and the European Union to rethink the potentially “irreparable” market outcomes of its ban on Russia-produced diamonds.

Russia is the biggest global supplier of uncut diamonds by volume. The international community has imposed new sanctions targeting Russian diamond transactions as part of a wider strategy aimed at reducing Moscow’s income streams, which support its military actions in Ukraine.

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What to expect in 2024 after diamond sector’s price plunge – by Paul Zimnisky (Mining.com – February 25, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

It’s been a tough ride for the diamonds sector since rough prices hit an all-time high in the first quarter of 2022. Last year rough prices fell 15-20% according to the Zimnisky Global Rough Diamond Price Index. Prices are now down about 25% from their early 2022 high.

So what happened to cause prices to tumble? The pandemic years brought generational volatility to diamond supply. In 2020, production dipped to the lowest levels since the 1990s. A recovery in 2021 through 2023 ensued. However, the new “normal” for output is still some 15-30 million carats below pre-2020 levels.

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Detecting Lab-Grown Diamonds That Deceive – by Jennifer Heebner (Rapaport Magazine – February 26, 2024)

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As Guy Borenstein gears up for Stuller’s Bench Jeweler Workshop in March, there’s one hot topic that will be addressed for the fifth consecutive year: synthetic diamonds. There’s no shortage of available equipment to detect lab-grown diamonds. According to the Natural Diamond Council (NDC), there are about 40 instruments on the market that aim to discover natural versus synthetic diamonds.

“Five years ago, I asked attendees how many were screening for lab-grown diamonds [LGDs] and one hand went up,” says the director of gemstone procurement for the Lafayette, Louisiana-based manufacturer. That number has grown as the years passed, but “the majority are still not checking,” he adds.

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New York Diamond Dealers Upbeat Amid Tight Supply – by Joshua Freedman (Rapaport Magazine – February 22, 2024)

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Demand is slow, but India’s import freeze is still having an impact.

Retail restocking is slow after a decent but not record-breaking holiday. The diamond market is uncertain about the rest of the year, and while inflation has eased, interest rates remain high. Yet despite the sluggishness on the demand side, New York dealers are reporting firm pricing on the local and Indian markets. This is mostly because there aren’t enough diamonds coming out of India; the inventory surplus that froze the market in 2023 has abated.

The market is soft in general, but particularly in round, D to Z goods, said Nilesh Sheth, president of New York-based polished supplier Nice Diamonds. Fancy shapes and colors are still moving well, he noted. In this context, “we are only adding items available at attractive prices,” Sheth revealed.

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What is the history of the South African Jewish diamond industry? – by Lionel Slier (Jerusalem Post – December 2, 2021)

https://www.jpost.com/

Once a desirable trade for a nice Jewish boy, diamond cutting and polishing in South Africa no longer is – here’s why.

The story goes that in 1867 a 15-year-old farm boy, Erasmus Jacobs, picked up a “mooi klippie” (a nice stone) on the banks of the Orange River in the Hopetown district of South Africa’s Northern Cape. He gave it to the farm’s owner who had it authenticated as a diamond by the leading minerals expert of the time.

News soon spread and there was a great deal of excitement about the possibility of finding diamonds in South Africa. The British Governor of the Cape Colony, George Grey, exclaimed: “This is the stone on which the future of this country rests.”

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Lab-grown diamonds come with sparkling price tags, but many have cloudy sustainability claims – by Isabella O’Malley (Associated Press – February 13, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The muted sounds of hammering and sanding drift down to the first floor of Bario Neal, a jewelry store in Philadelphia, where rustic artwork that mimics nature hangs on warmly-lit walls.

Waiting for one of those rings is Haley Farlow, a 28-year-old second grade teacher who has been designing her three-stone engagement ring with her boyfriend. They care about price and also don’t want jewelry that takes a toll on the Earth, or exploits people in mining. So they’re planning on buying diamonds grown in a laboratory.

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ON ST VALENTINE’S DAY, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (Gript – February 14, 2024)

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According to the wedding website theknot.com, February 14th is actually not the most popular day to get engaged; that day is December 25th, Christmas Day. However, Valentine’s day is up there in the top 5 for the ultimate romantic gesture.

Valentine, the 3rd Century Roman Christian who tied the knot for piles of young couples in spite of emperor Claudius’s commands forbidding marriage, would be pleased you feel. Not recently though. Weddings for the first half of the year in 2020 were at about 2% of the previous year. Not even old Claudius had such a wedding-killing hit rate.

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