Diamond News Archives

IMAGINE YOU have an assignation in New York. You have not been told where you should meet the other person and she has not been told where to meet you. You have no understanding of where to find her or where she might usually be found. She is as ignorant of you. You cannot communicate. You must somehow guess how to find each other and make those guesses coincide. Where should you go? And at what time of day?

A good answer is Grand Central Station at noon. That was the response of the majority asked by Thomas Schelling, a game theorist and Nobel prizewinner in economics, in experiments reported “The Strategy of Conflict”, published in 1960. People are often able to act tacitly in concert if they know that others are trying to do the same, said Schelling. Most situations throw up a clue, a “focal point”, around which to co-ordinate, even if it takes imagination as much as logic to find it.

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Now imagine the world economy goes into a tailspin. There is panic selling of risky assets. Where should you seek safety? Cash is the most liquid asset; but which kind? The dollar is a natural focal point. Yet America’s fiscal indiscipline and its sizeable current-account deficit might give pause. Other currencies have their faults, too. There is one other destination you might consider, if only because others are starting to think the same way. And that is gold.

A lot of people respond to this suggestion by backing away gently while claiming an urgent appointment elsewhere. Gold keeps some strange company. Ardent gold bugs seem to know a...

* Mine owned by Petra Diamonds may take 5-10 years to clear debt

* Diamond miners face price pressure, synthetic competition

The owner of one of the world's most famous diamond mines could be about a decade away from clearing its multi-million-dollar debts, in a sign of the struggles facing an industry assailed by synthetic rivals and uncertain demand.

Petra Diamonds bought Cullinan in 2008, aiming to breathe new life into the South African mine renowned for yielding the largest rough gem diamond ever found – 3,106 carats – and being the world's main source of rare blue diamonds.

The London-listed miner, which acquired Cullinan from industry leader De Beers, borrowed heavily to revamp the facility and began mining a new section of ore last July.

Petra told Reuters its debts from the mine stood at around 65 percent of its overall $650 million in borrowing, which would represent about $420 million.

Cullinan's general manager Juan Kemp added that it could take "between five and 10 years" from the opening of the new section to clear the debts related to the mine. That goes beyond the 2022 maturity of Petra's bond notes.

The company says it expects to generate free cash flow this year – a target it had hoped to reach in 2017 before being derailed by strikes and construction delays – and start reducing its debts.

Kemp said one thought kept him awake at night: "When will we get that next big stone?"

Ben Davis, mining analyst at Liberum, said the diamond prices Petra had achieved were below market expectations.

"Everyone is very much hoping, for the sake of the equity holders and debt holders, it will deliver more higher-quality stones," he added.

The miner's...

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References

1. ^{^} Skip to main content (www.zerohedge.com)

The world's top diamond producer by output, Alrosa (MCX:ALRS), found a heart-shaped rough diamond at the Udachnaya kimberlite pipe in Yakutia, eastern Russia.

The stone weighs 65.7 carats and company experts say it may be over 300 million years old.

“Diamonds of a distinctive shape that resemble some object or symbol are extremely rare in nature. Most rough diamonds are octahedron-shaped or do not have a particular shape at all. The appearance of a heart-shaped rough diamond, especially on the eve of Valentine's Day, seems to be a symbolic gift of nature not only to our company but also to all loving couples,” said Evgeny Agureev, Director of the United Selling Organization at Alrosa, in a media statement.

This is not the first time that the Russian firm lays hands on a unique diamond. Last summer, just in time for the World Cup that was being hosted in its home country, a rough diamond in the shape of a soccer ball was found at the company’s Karpinskaya-1 pipe, located in the northern Arkhangelsk Region.

The heart-shaped gem was actually dug up on January 23, 2019, but it made its public appearance on February 14. The place where it was unearthed, the Udachnaya pipe, is located near the town of Udachny, some 550 kilometres north of Mirny.

Udachnaya was first discovered in 1955 but it took over 15 years for open-pit mining to start in the place. The pipe now ranks among the largest primary diamond deposits both in Yakutia and abroad and it consists of two ore bodies, the Western and Eastern which unite in the near-surface part.

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