Diamond News Archives

The Fed’s top officials, including Chair Jerome H. Powell, acknowledge that a lasting period of uncomfortably high inflation is a possibility.

(IDEX Online) - Diamond-producing countries will suffer a consumer backlash unless they can prove their output is responsibly sourced, warned Edward Asscher (pictured), president of the World Diamond Council (WDC).

He said some sectors of the industry believed the Kimberley Process restricted trade, rather than enabling it. 

The result, he said, could soon be a "marketplace with two diamond value chains".

Meanwhile, in a separate address, Shamiso Mtisi, on behalf of the KP Civil Society Coalition, identified countries where there were failures to comply with KP requirements - Central African Republic (CAR), Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Angola, Brazil, Venezuela, Lesotho and Sierra Leone (further detail below). 

He also said: "Non-KP members around CAR, Sudan and Chad in particular, should be actively engaged by the KP to help address the situation.

"Most importantly trading countries such as UAE and Lebanon should improve and strengthen their systems to curb illicit flow of conflict diamonds that are entering their market."

Mr Asscher, addressing the closing session of a virtual meeting of the Kimberly Process last Friday. said: "Responsibly sourced diamonds will be more in demand. They will obtain better prices in the marketplace, and buyers at jewelry stores will demand proof that they are indeed responsibly sourced before purchasing them as polished."

Consumers increasingly demand that diamonds can be verifiably shown to have been responsibly and environmentally sourced without breaching human rights or social justice.

"Small and medium-sized enterprises will experience difficulties selling natural diamonds, because they do not belong to the elite group of polishers that can guarantee that the diamonds they source and polish are responsibly sourced," he cautioned.

"That will create an unlevel playing field in the...

Join Mike Maloney and Jeff Clark as they examine the latest news for the economy and precious metals markets. Stick around until the end of the video for some amazing data on silver’s purchasing power.

(IDEX Online) - Burgundy is to set up its own cutting and polishing facility for yellow diamonds recovered from its newly-acquired Ellendale Mine, in Australia.

The factory will also be used for gems from its Naujaat project in Canada, where bulk sampling for fancy yellow to orange yellow diamonds is about to start.

And the company says it will offer manufacturing services to third parties.

Ellendale ceased production in 2015 when previous owner Kimberley Diamond Company went into liquidation.  It was the world's largest producer of fancy yellow diamonds and had an exclusive supply agreement with Tiffany & Co.

"Burgundy intends to extract maximum value from the natural beauty of the Ellendale stones via its own marketing initiatives, and re-establish Western Australia as a supplier of unique, high-value diamonds to luxury-goods markets worldwide," said the company in a statement today.

Diamond mining in Australia came to an end last November with the closure after 37 years of Rio Tinto's iconic Argyle Mine, which provided 90 per cent of the world's pink gems.

Burgundy Diamond Mines plans to re-open Ellendale next year.

Pic shows yellow diamonds from Ellendale...