A rough stone of almost 1,000 carats to be tendered in Israel

Tzoffey's procures another huge diamond for its tender in March,  thought to be the largest rough diamond ever offered for sale in Israel.
 

the Israeli-French auction house, announced it will offer yet another very large rough diamond, a stone of almost 1,000 carats, at its tender at the March 9-13 International Rough Diamond Week (IRDW) at the Israel Diamond Exchange. Earlier this week, Tzoffeys announced it would tender a rough stone weighing more than 600 carats.

"Just a few days ago, we were very excited to have secured a 600-carat rough stone for the tender week, but I believe this diamond will be the real standout item of the event," said Tzoffey's President Avner Sofiov. "We're leaving some of the excitement for the events of the tender week itself and will only release more information on this huge stone at a later time.

"This diamond, however, will make our tender a truly unique event, and will add to the prestige for all the involved parties and companies working on the International Rough Diamond Week." Sofiov noted that Tzoffey's tender was now overbooked, and that the Israel Diamond Exchange had allocated four extra viewing stalls for Tzoffey's on the last day of the week-long event to allow for the intense interest,.

IDE President Shmuel Schnitzer noted he was very pleased with the developments in the build-up to the International Rough Diamond Week. "I'd like to commend IDE Deputy President Arnon Juwal, head of the IRDW organizing committee, his team and of course all the participating companies that are tendering diamonds for their contribution to this event. The addition of these large stones certainly adds a great deal of interest to what promises to be a great, first rough diamond week at our exchange," he said.

De Beers Auction Sales to showcase high value stones during International Rough Diamond Week in Israel in March

De Beers Auction Sales will be participating in the International Rough Diamond Week (IRDW) to be held March 9-13 at the Israel Diamond Exchange. The company, previously known as Diamdel and wholly owned by De Beers, will showcase its Exceptional & Special and Large products during the IRDW.

Limor Rosner, Senior Sales Manager, Israel, said the firm was pleased to be part of the rough diamond week program. "It's exciting for De Beers Auction Sales to be part of this value-adding event organized by the exchange. For more than eight decades, De Beers has been a steady supplier and partner of Israel's diamond industry and trade, and we are pleased to continue and to contribute to the growth of Israel's diamond sector."

Neil Ventura, Executive Vice President of De Beers Auction Sales, praised the IDE's initiative to hold regular, focused rough diamond trading events. "Approximately 10 percent of De Beers' rough diamonds are sold through our auction platform," he noted. "Auctions are regarded today as an integral part of the rough supply pipeline and we are committed to offering all interested customers an equitable opportunity to purchase some of our highest value stones during IRDW. I am confident that buyers at the IRDW will do well, and that the rough diamond week will be an important and recurring value adding service to the local industry and trade."

IDE president Shmuel Schnitzer said that the contribution of De Beers Auction Sales to the IRDW is a key element in its success, both in the short and the long term. "Our endeavor to strengthen Israel's position as a rough diamond trading hub is dependent on the cooperation of companies such as De Beers to make it happen," he commented.

Registration for the IRDW is now closed, with more than 300 buyers registered for viewing and bidding at the tenders.

Naomi Watts dazzles in hot pink strapless dress for Bulgari

Naomi Watts enjoyed a romantic dinner out with her husband Liev Schreiber in Los Angeles on Tuesday, but she was solo on the red carpet in Milan on Friday.


The 21 Grams actress attended the Bulgari autumn/winter 2014 accessories presentation at the Bulgari Hotel during Milan Fashion Week.
The 45-year-old Australian actress mingled at the event with Vogue Italia Editor-In-Chief Franca Sozzani and actor Dave Franco, younger brother of James Franco.

The blonde beauty dazzled on the red carpet in a pink and black snakeskin-print Christopher Kane strapless bandage dress with a handkerchief, knee-length hem. It's from the designer's pre-fall 2014 collection.
The dress was set off by a stunning 75-carat diamond necklace from the Bulgari Serpenti collection, which the actress borrowed for the event. She carried a black clutch.
Her blonde locks were styled in a sideswept updo with gentle curls framing her face.

The mom of two boys, Sasha, six, and Samuel, five, has been a staple at Milan Fashion Week for years.
The Italian event follows New York and London's fashion weeks, and leads into the final of the marquee events, Paris, commencing Tuesday and going through March 5.
Naomi also recently attended New York Fashion Week, including the Calvin Klein show, where Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong'o of 12 Years a Slave was also spotted..

The Academy Award-nominated actress stars in three upcoming films, including a comedy titled Birdman, alongside Michael Keaton, who plays a washed up actor struggling to make a Broadway play.
She's also recently wrapped a comedy drama film with Ben Stiller and Amanda Seyfried, titled While We're Young.
Comedy is quite a departure for Naomi, who is best known for gritty dramas such as Mulholland Drive and 21 Grams.

Pure Gold Sales of Jewelry +25%, Diamonds +8% During DSF

Award winning jewelry retailer Pure Gold Jewellers reported a better than expected 25 percent year on year increase in gold jewelry sales during the important Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) this year. The company also reported an 8 percent surge in diamond jewelry sales during the same period.

According to Karim Merchant, the CEO of Pure Gold Jewellers, “Our unique DSF promotion offering customers a chance to win a BMW Z4 convertible, luxury holiday packages and free certified quarter-carat diamond pendant, was a huge draw for customers. We experienced a substantial 25 percent rise in gold jewelry sales, mainly due to the increase in the number of tourists from the Indian subcontinent.”
The winners of the raffle draw will be announced on February 18, 2014.
In addition to the unique DSF promotion, Pure Gold Jewellers was also a participating outlet of Dubai Gold & Jewellery Group’s DSF raffle promotions this year. Several customers who shopped at Pure Gold Jewellers became lucky winners of diamond solitaire ring and one kilo of gold by participating in the raffle draw.
About Pure Gold Jewellers:
Pure Gold Jewellers is an award winning jewelry retailer recognized for excellent customer service by the industry. It is now one of the fastest growing jewelry brands with 125 stores in ten countries. Pure Gold Jewellers is a recipient of the "Best Service Performance Brand" award in the large business category for five years - 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013 - under the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme (DSES) of the Dubai Department of Economic Development. The company also topped in the 'Best Customer Service' category in the UAE jewelry sector in an annual study by international consultancy Ethos Consultancy for the year 2009 and 2010. Pure Gold Jewellers has been consistently ranked as a Superbrand by UAE Superbrand Council for five consecutive years since 2009.

Petra Diamonds plans to pay regular dividends from June 2016

listed Petra Diamonds is planning to start paying dividends on a regular basis with effect from its financial year to June 2016, once it has completed the major capital expenditure programmes under way at its Finsch and Cullinan mines.
 
Announcing the news at a presentation to investors at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Tuesday, CEO Johan Dippenaar said the company was committed to capital expenditure of $180m-$190m a year from 2013 to 2015.
The money is being spent to establish deeper "block cave" extensions to the underground mining operations on the diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes at both mines.
Block caving is a highly mechanised mining method that is one of the safest and cheapest that can be used, but it requires considerable capital invested upfront to start the operation.
Mr Dippenaar said: "There is a very high upfront exposure but, once those block caves are in operation, then our capital expenditure commitments decline sharply and we can leverage off that infrastructure for years to come."
He said the deep-level extensions would take mining operations into "undiluted" kimberlite ore, which had a number of advantages over the present operations that took place in old mining areas where the kimberlite ore had been diluted by amounts of waste rock.
In particular, the grade in the new mining areas is expected to be sharply higher than the material Petra has been mining closer to surface.
Mr Dippenaar said he expected average grades to rise 50%-60% from about 37 carats per hundred tons of ore mined to about 56 carats per hundred tons mined at Finsch, and from about 31 carats per hundred tons mined to about 50 carats per hundred tons mined at Cullinan.
As a result, group profit margins are expected to rise from about 34% in the 2013 financial year to roughly 50% by 2019.
He also pointed out that the expansion programme was fully funded with debt facilities of $222m in place from Absa, Rand Merchant Bank, First National Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
Petra operates six diamond mines, five of which are in South Africa. Four of those mines were acquired from De Beers, while the fifth, Helam, has been placed on care and maintenance after Petra’s initial attempts to sell the mine were unsuccessful.
The sixth operation, the Williamson mine in Tanzania, was also acquired from De Beers.
Asked about the possibility of listing Petra on the JSE, Mr Dippenaar replied: "It’s not a priority for us. We have a lot on our plate at present and we are fully funded to pay for our expansion plans so we don’t need to raise any money."

GIA Unveils Synthetic Diamond Detector

In an effort to identify the flow of synthetic diamonds in the pipeline, the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has developed a machine that detects differences between natural diamonds and man-made stones. 
DiamondCheck runs on GIA software and uses 3D imaging to label the diamond as “natural” or “non-diamond” or a third option, "further lab testing," when the initial finding is unclear. While the machine can only test one stone at a time, it only takes about 10 seconds for the software to determine the result.
Tom Moses, the senior vice president of GIA Laboratory and Research, said the device, which is able to examine diamonds from 1 point to 10 carats, is 100 percent accurate. According to Dr. Wuyi Wang, GIA’s director of research and development, there are certain chemistry features that only occur in natural diamonds and it is in DiamondCheck’s ability to identify those subtle chemical differences that make it so precise.
The GIA will install the first DiamondCheck machine at the Diamond Dealers Club in New York on Thursday and then at the major bourses in Israel, South Africa, Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. Simple to use, the GIA will train individuals to operate the machines at the various diamond clubs.
Available now through GIA Instruments, the DiamondCheck retails for $23,900. However, the GIA will provide one instrument to each bourse for no cost. 

Source:diamonds.net

Zimbabwe Seeks Diamond Auction in China, UAE

Zimbabwe is planning to auction its diamonds in Shanghai and Dubai as alternatives to Antwerp in Belgium, where it says its diamonds were being under-valued, state media reported Friday.
Zimbabwe sold its first diamonds in Antwerp last December after the European Union lifted years-old sanction placed on the southern African nation's government mining arm - Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) in September.

In Antwerp auction, around 300,000 carats of Zimbabwean gems were sold for around 10.5 million U.S. dollars. Officials lamented the low revenue as the gems were considered of low quality.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa was quoted by state newspaper the Herald on Friday as saying that government officials are studying the chances to sell the gems through the Shanghai Diamond Exchange or the Dubai Diamond Exchange.
"All this is to discover the true value of our diamonds," Chinamasa said.
State news agency New Ziana on Thursday reported that First Element, a Botswana registered company responsible for Zimbabwe diamond auction in Belgium, disclosed that the second auction for Zimbabwean gems at Antwerp will be held from Feb. 12 to Feb. 24 this year.
Zimbabwe is estimated to have produced 11 million carats of diamond in 2013. The bulk of gems were mined by seven companies operated in the diamond-rich eastern region of Marange.
Income of raw diamond export has been instrumental to Zimbabwe's mining sector boom since 2010. The government has urged the industry to set up diamond cutting and polishing facilities to optimize the revenue from the precious stones.

Diamond Dealers Club Installs DiamondCheck Machine for Members

The Diamond Dealers Club (DDC) of New York president Reuven Kaufman announced that its membership was extremely pleased that the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) provided it with its new DiamondCheck machine to be used without charge by club members to determine whether stones were natural or synthetic. 

According to Kaufman, the GIA technology will assist the membership to assure both themselves and their clients that their goods are correctly classified as natural or synthetic.

Kaufman reported that, while it is neither illegal nor unethical to deal in synthetic diamonds, passing synthetic stones off as natural diamonds could potentially have a harmful impact on our industry by undermining consumer confidence.  This follows reports that some synthetic diamonds submitted to certifying labs for grading have, perhaps inadvertently, been mixed with parcels of natural diamonds in the past year or so.
The DDC president also said that the club, which was established in 1931, was committed to an ongoing education program for its members with respect to synthetic diamonds and it conducts seminars on how they may be effectively identified as well as potential action by bourses worldwide for knowingly passing off synthetic stones as natural diamonds. 
Kaufman particularly expressed his gratitude to GIA’s leadership: Susan Jacques, the lab's president; Tom Moses, the senior vice president and  Wuyi Wang, the director of research at GIA in arranging for the placement of DiamondCheck in the club's trading floor.  He added that the “DDC is a major diamond trading center, one committed to an industry built on integrity, trust and reputation.  The installation of DiamondCheck technology by GIA, the first bourse to which GIA provided this equipment, will help us to both prevent synthetic diamonds from entering the market as natural diamonds as well as to ensure the maintenance of the high degree of consumer confidence that is critical to the industry worldwide.”