Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Petra Diamonds' No. 2 shareholder dumps 70 pct stake in miner

Petra Diamonds Ltd said its second-largest shareholder sold more than two-thirds of its stake in the diamond miner through a placement at a discount of 12 percent to the stock's Monday close.
 
The stock was down 11 percent at 193.25 pence at 1042 GMT on the London Stock Exchange. The stock had fallen 12 percent earlier on Tuesday on rumours of the placement.
Awal Bank placed 43 million shares with UK and international institutions at 190 pence per share or about 82 million pounds ($139 million).
A further 13.2 million shares held by Awal Bank – owned by Maan al-Sanea, the Saudi billionaire head of the Saad Group – are subject to a 90 day lock-up, Petra said in a statement.
Petra's website shows that Awal Bank held 60.8 million shares or 11.9 percent in Petra through Saad Investments Co Ltd.
The miner said it was unaware if the remaining 4.6 million shares held by Awal Bank were to be sold at this time.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Lucapa Recovers Type IIa Diamonds at Lulo

Lucapa Diamond Company recovered six type IIa stones along wtih six  other gem-quality diamonds from preliminary surface sampling at its Lulo diamond concession in Angola.


The company noted that the diamonds were recovered from four separate kimberlite pipes. Five of the type IIa diamonds recovered weighed a total of 2.30 carats and ranged in size from 1.05 carats to 0.15 carats. Type IIa diamonds are rare and account for less than 1 percent of global production.

Miles Kennedy, the managing director of Lucapa, concluded  that since kimberlite pipes at the Lulo concession host type IIa diamonds, this was another significant milestone for Lucapa.

“The fact we have now identified several diamond bearing kimberlite pipes proximal to where we have found large alluvial diamonds is of great significance as we are really only scratching the surface of these pipes at this time,” he said.

Kennedy explained that the independent confirmation that 50 percent of the diamonds recovered are type IIa diamonds also adds early credence that these pipes could be the source of the alluvial diamonds at Lulo.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

WFDB Instructs Bourses To Adopt Diamond Declaration



The World Federation of Diamond Bourses is directing all of its affiliated diamond exchanges, thirty in total, to append a specifically worded declaration to all of its invoices and memos from now on, the Israel Diamond Exchange reports. The sentence of text is a proclamation that as far as the author of the document is aware, all diamonds referred to therein are natural diamonds, not synthetic diamonds, and that they have not been treated.

The appended text to be added to invoices is as follows: "The diamonds herein invoiced are exclusively of natural origin and untreated based on personal knowledge and/or written assurances provided to us by the suppliers of these diamonds." The appended text for memos is identical to the text above, with only the word memo substituted for the word invoice.

The move comes at a time when diamantaires are increasingly worried about reported cases in which lab-made diamonds were passed off as natural diamonds, which are significantly more expensive to produce.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Where to for GOLD and SILVER


Watch how uncomfortable the host gets when the conversation turns to gold manipulation. Move along, move along! nothing to see here!!! Click : Video

New Device Grades Fancy Colored Diamonds

A new device can color-grade both fancy colored diamonds as well as diamonds with secondary hues, says a release from manufacturer ImaGem. 


The device uses data from thousands of samples to derive its grades for fancy colored stones, says Dr. Lalit K. Aggarwal, chairman of ImaGem, which manufactures the device.
The device, called the GL3200, can “identify which stones have brown or gray or other hues and then map those on a D through Z scale using scientific measurement technologies,” says Aggarwal, who says he worked on the secondary-hue issue for 20 years. “We now have a scientific method of determining the secondary hue. A lot of different opinions are getting resolved with this technology.” 
The machine can grade 2,400 diamonds a month, the company said, and also rates fluorescence, light behavior, proportion analysis, symmetry, and alignment for round as well as fancy shapes. Diamonds are loaded into the machine by a robotic arm.