Firestone Diamonds announced Thursday that it recovered 208,572 carats in Q4, up 34% from its Q3. However, the diamond market is not great, warned Paul Bosma, chief executive officer. “From a market and pricing perspective, it was a tough financial year, particularly for the smaller, lower value goods and these conditions are expected to persist … Read more
In his first -ever blog, Ernest Blom, president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, argues that the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is slow because one of the most hot potatoes is ignored. The KPCS, he wrote,is one of the great accomplishments of the worldwide diamond community of the last two decades, as more … Read more
The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) will no longer provide financial backing to the city’s diamond-technology unit, citing difficult conditions in the local industry. “As a result of the high cost of labor in our country, almost the entirety of our diamond manufacturing has relocated abroad,” AWDC spokeswoman Margaux Donckier said Friday. The AWDC established … Read more
Gem Diamonds has recovered a white diamond weighing 140 carats, the second over 100 carats it has reported this year. It found the high-quality stone on July 6 at its Letšeng mine in Lesotho, the company said Monday. In March, it found a 161-carat white diamond at the deposit. The miner recently recovered two yellow … Read more
De Beers trimmed its production plans for this year as the world’s biggest diamond producer responds to a brewing industry crisis that’s hitting demand for its stones. The Anglo American Plc unit will now mine about 31 million carats in 2019, at the bottom end of a previous forecast range. The company, once the monopoly … Read more
Alrosa has agreed to a joint venture with national miner Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) for exploring new diamond projects in the country. The deal, which provides Alrosa with a 70% stake in any new greenfield deposits, encompasses geological exploration, diamond mining and independent sales of rough stones to external markets, the Russian miner said … Read more
