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21/10/2022 10:34In recent years, the Kao Mine in Lesotho has established itself as a leading producer of exceptional pink diamonds. Over the last few years, some remarkable stones have been recovered, including the Pink Storm, the Purple Princess and the Rose of Kao. The last discovery, the Pink Palesa a 21.86-carat Pink Palesa diamond, was sold in June of 2021 in Antwerp by Bonas Group.
20/10/2022 12:44After the recent record setting price breaker auction of the Williamson Pink Star, Sotheby’s now announces that they will soon auction eight blue diamonds sourced from the De Beers Group, with the De Beers Exceptional Blue collection expected to fetch more than $US85 million.
17/10/2022 12:05Mid September Bruce Cleaver still attended FACETS 2022, the conference on Diamonds in The Age Of The Consumer in Antwerp, organized by the Antwerp World Dmaiamond Center (AWDC). Today he announced that he will be stepping down from his role of CEO of De Beers after 8 years of holding the post, opting for the role of co-chairman of the diamond behemoth. He joined De Beers group in 2005 and became CEO in 2016.
17/10/2022 12:01Selling to an undisclosed buyer at the Sotheby’s auction house in Hong Kong, the Williamson Pink Star diamond sold at 58 million dollars, fetching more than double the anticipated sales price. The pastel-hued diamond was named in honor of two other pink diamonds, the CTF Pink Star, which sold for $71.2 million in 2017, and the "Williamson" diamond, a pink diamond gifted to Queen Elizabeth II.
The pink colored 11.15-carat diamond is a rare find among gem quality stones and was discovered at the well-known Mwadui mines in Tanzania.
27/07/2022 10:25Australian miner Lucapa discovered a massive 170ct pink diamond at its Angolan Lulo mine, believed to be the largest pink recovered in the past 300 years. The incredibly rare find is named "The Lulo Rose".
20/07/2022 12:12Gem Diamonds has recovered another 114ct rough at the Letšeng Lesotho mine, just a month after the discovery of a 245ct Type II white, the fourth 100ct+ stone in the past two months.
14/07/2022 19:54Since March 2022, both the polished diamond import and diamond retail market have taken a toll from a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic in China, as the local administrations nationwide have strengthened preventive and control measures.
14/07/2022 10:07Israel-based diamond tech company Sarine Technologies and the Chinese state lab National Gemstone Testing Center (NGTC) announced a partnership that includes Sarine’s light performance technology (“Sarine Light”) has resulted in a co-branded new industry standard for this grading feature on the Chinese market. NGTC will include the light performance grading in its grading reports.
14/07/2022 09:49Last week, Van Cleef & Arpels revealed its Legend of Diamonds, 25 Mystery Set jewels. The process took four years to complete, from the moment Antwerp based diamond companies and manufacturers Taché and Samir Gems bought the 910ct, type IIa Lesotho Legend discovered at the Lesotho Letšeng mine, in 2018 to the 67 diamonds that were cut by Antwerp’s high-tech diamond polishing company Diamcad, to the creation of a bespoke Mystery Set collection of 25 unique pieces incorporating the polished stones.
14/07/2022 09:18The “Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030”, initiated last year by Cartier (Richemont) and conglomerate Kering, has appointed Belgian Iris Van der Veken, former Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), as Executive Director and Secretary General. Van der Veken’s task will be to set up a governance structure that can help the initiative to reach its goals, enabling participating brands and companies to achieve commitments regarding climate, diversity, health and safety, labor conditions etc.
30/06/2022 06:18On Tuesday, President Masisi of Botswana, the First Lady, and a large delegation including the country's Minister of Minerals and Energy Moagi and Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation Kwape visited the Antwerp diamond community.
27/06/2022 18:19The Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), the industry organization representing Antwerp’s 1600 diamond companies and service providers, has appointed David Gotlib as its new President, replacing outgoing President Chaim Pluczenik. The Board also appointed Sahag Arslanian and Amish Jain as Vice Presidents.
17/06/2022 06:14The Financial Times reports that the Angolan Government has blocked and taken over the 18% stake of the Chinese company LLI (part of Sonangol) in Catoca. The Government now holds 59% of shares in Angola’s largest mine through IGAPE, the state body managing govt shareholding in companies active in the country. The move is considered another step in President Lourenço’s reform policy, reducing the interdependence with China that was established under the Dos Santos regime, when deals between Angola and China, especially in the oil business, were booming.
15/06/2022 06:40The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) announced that it has started a winddown of its paper reports, starting with its most popular article, the Diamond Report, to go digital only in January next year. Graded diamonds will be returned with a QR code and the report can be consulted online or via GIA's new app. GIA is also launching an AI-based (Artificial Intelligence) service for diamonds graded in the new system, matching the inscribed diamonds with the digital grading report via a dedicated instrument, which will be available later this year at US$695, JCK News reports.
15/06/2022 06:10Israel-based Lusix, producer of lab-grown diamonds completed an investment round of US$90m, and counts LVMH Luxury Ventures as one of its newly onboarded investors. The company will use the money to expand its production capacity later this year. In a Q&A with JCK News, industry analyst Paul Zimnisky discusses LGD trends, saying LGD prices have been dropping significantly lately as supply is booming. A 1.5ct for example dropped from US$3,500 to US$3,000, Zimnisky noted.
15/06/2022 05:50Barely two weeks after the discoveries of a 129ct and a 125ct, Gem Diamonds has added another rare find to the Lesotho Letšeng list, a 245ct white Type II white rough of exceptional quality.
07/06/2022 06:20Australia-based Newfield Resources, concluded its maiden sale of 5333ct rough produced in the miner’s Sierra Leone Tongo mine, via Antwerp tender specialist Bonas Group successfully, with total revenues amounting to US$1.44m. Strong demand pushed prices for the 15 trial sale lots to an average of US$269/ct, well over Newfields estimation of US$222/ct. Newfield will conduct more sales this year as the company starts production at two of the five identified kimberlites on the Tongo mining leases.
03/06/2022 11:35According to the Zimbabwe Independent, they have obtained evidence that over US$ 20m of diamond revenues was siphoned out of the country as the state-controlled diamond sales agency fails to handle continued corruption and malpractices. In its most recent tender, the four parcels on the block were won by two companies, Diamore DMCC (3 parcels) and NRTS Diamonds Ltd (1 parcel).
03/06/2022 11:04During a kickoff meeting that took place in Kananga, in the DRC’s Kasai region last week, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), together with the DRC’s Ministry of Mining and its subdivisions SAEMAPE and CEEC, NGO DDI@RESOLVE and tech company Everledger initiated OrigemA, a pilot project that aims to set up a fully transparent, digitally enabled mine-to-market program for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) cooperatives in the DRC.
03/06/2022 10:561,5 years after the closing of the famous Argyle mine in Western Australia, which produced the vast majority of the world’s fancy pink diamonds, Rio Tinto announces a partner program that will continue the legacy of the Argyle Pink Diamonds brand, releasing the names of the first two “Icon Partners”, John Calleija and Joh Glajz, both having worked with Argyle’s precious pink diamonds for decades.
- 03/06/2022 10:34
Australia-based Lucapa acquired the Merlin Diamond Project in the Northern Territory, Australia in 2021. The miner is currently progressing the Merlin Feasibility Study and assessing different mining methods for the kimberlite pipes including vertical pit mining (VPM), illustrated in this animation.
03/06/2022 10:11Gem Diamonds announced it has recovered a 125ct top white diamond at the Letšeng mine in Lesotho. Since 2006, the Lesotho mine, famed for its rough diamonds of exceptional sizes and quality, yielded more than 60 100+ct stones, 16 last year alone, six this year-to-date.
28/05/2022 08:32First Element reports extremely strong results from their Antwerp sale of Jagersfontein Developments and Rooipoort Developments production which closed on Monday (23rd May) at the Antwerp Tender Facility. 100% of the parcels on offer were sold with increases in prices seen across all categories, especially in the smaller goods. There were 112 companies who placed bids with 62 of them being successful. “It appears that the diamond market has recovered exceptionally well after the uncertainty seen in recent weeks.
13/05/2022 10:51Fintech company Luxus this week launched a platform where it plans to offer investment grade diamonds, fractionalized into smaller shares, modeled after fractionalized investing models such as the art platform Masterworks. The first diamond the company wants to list is an Argyle pink valued at US$400k, divided into 2,000 shares of US$200 each, pending SEC approval this month. Luxus gathered US$2.5m in seed money last summer and is the brainchild of former Blackstone managing director Dana Auslander and luxury PR specialist Gretchen Gunlocke Fenton.
06/05/2022 14:56According to CNN Business, lab-grown diamond jewelry sales are surging. But why is that? CNN asked a few diamond specialists to weigh in on this matter.
Independent diamond industry analyst Edahn Golan confirmed the increase. March data showed the number of sold engagement rings with a lab-grown diamond rose by 63% compared to last year, while the sales of engagement rings with a natural diamond declined by 25% in the same period.
03/05/2022 15:08Petra Diamonds announced the results of their Tender cycle 5 of fiscal year 2022. They sold 635,806 carats for a total of US$86.1 million. Prices decreased by 23.7% compared to Tender 4 (March 2022) but were up 3.2% on Tender 3 (December 2021).
The tender included a 13.74 ct blue Exceptional Stone for the Cullinan mine. The stone was sold into a partnership with Stargems for US$ 5.7 million, with Petra retaining a 50% interest in the profits.
02/05/2022 16:29Australian diamond exploration and development company Newfield announced they signed an exclusive diamond sales and marketing agreement with the Bonas Group. Newfield’s flagship asset is the Tongo Mine Development in eastern Sierra Leone.
Through this partnership, Newfield will be able to fully authenticate the source of the Tongo diamonds sold, via the Sarine Technologies traceability program used by Bonas. Buyers and retailers of those goods will therefore have full traceability of the diamonds’ origin.
27/04/2022 17:45Today the step-cut fancy-vivid blue diamond weighing 15.10 carats sold for (450.9 million HKD) US$57.47 million, or over US$3.8 million per carat, at Sotheby's Hong Kong auction.
22/04/2022 17:32Iconic diamond miner De Beers this week now officially returns to Angola, as the Anglo American diamond mining division signed two mineral investment deals with the State's mining entity Endiama, giving the miner exploration rights for 35 years in the Northeast of the country. Each exploration concession will have a separate joint venture, with the majority of shares held by De Beers, with an option for Endiama to increase it's share.
22/04/2022 10:50GIA announced it is developing “GIA Source Verify”, a service aimed at retailers and consumers, to be launched in the near future, using “third-party verified documents, such as KP certificates and invoices”, to provide “reliable diamond origin information”. Although apart from a landing page, not much information on the process behind the service is yet available, it seems GIA will be focusing on a (digital) paper trail rather than technology for the information it will include in Source Verify, which will be made available for consumers at no additional cost.
11/04/2022 14:29In recent weeks both the Arnault family and Tiffany & Co. have made headlines when it comes to the Metaverse. Days after his father, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault signaled his wariness of the metaverse "bubble", Alexandre Arnault changed his profile picture on Twitter and Instagram to a Cryptopunk NFT (PFP). Alexandre, who is the executive VP of product and communications at Tiffany & Co., purchased an NFT titled Punk #3167 for ETH 160, roughly USD 415,000.
07/04/2022 16:08Sarine announced it is commencing beta testing of its new AutoScanTM system, an innovative robotic system that executes fast and accurate data acquisition of rough diamonds for traceability and other purposes.
07/04/2022 10:52Africa Intelligence reports that Botswana’s President Masisi, speaking at a gala dinner hosted by Lucara Diamonds, is adding pressure to the negotiations with De Beers on a renewed Debswana contract, the 50/50 joint venture between the government and De Beers. In the current agreement, 75 % of Debswana’s rough is sold via De Beers, 25% is sold via the state-owned Okavango Diamond Company, the latter achieving record sales revenue via its sales in Antwerp last year.
28/03/2022 10:17Namdia, the state-owned diamond authorized to sell 15% of rough production from the Namibian government and De Beers joint venture Namdeb, has released its updated client list, including nine Antwerp-based diamond companies last Friday. Namdia now has 36 core clients for the next three-year cycle, up from 16 in the previous years (2019-2021). Earlier this year, in February, Namibian President Hage Geingob visited the Antwerp diamond community, to discuss business opportunities.
22/03/2022 14:22The Bonas Group, a global tender and auction house, announced they are adopting the Sarine Diamond Journey traceability program and will offer stones with a registered geographical origin.
Bonas brings diamond output directly to the market. Therefore, the origin can be confidently assured. The diamonds will be registered using the Sarine Diamond Journey ecosystem. The rough diamonds will be accurately scanned, allowing their subsequent traceability throughout the polishing process, providing retailers reliably traced diamonds from varied origins.
21/03/2022 10:35Mining company De Beers and the government of Namibia officially unveiled a new diamond recovery vessel: ‘Benguela Gem’. The vessel will commence operations from next week.
09/03/2022 16:22Informa Markets announced the mother of all fairs, Hong Kong September, will temporarily be moved to Singapore, under the name JGW Singapore, taking place Sept 27-30 at Singapore Expo. The move, after two years of absence as international trade show, will allow foreign buyers and exhibitors to attend.
04/03/2022 19:45Several media report the global financial watchdog FATF today in Paris at its plenary session has decided to "gray list" the United Arab Emirates over concerns that the UAE hasn't made enough progress in tackling illicit financial flows, Bloomberg stated.
03/03/2022 13:38Antwerp Jeweler Beldiamond teamed up with digital transparency company Everledger to offer diamonds backed by blockchain. Thanks to this technology, the journey of a diamond can be entirely traced and recorded, creating its own unique digital identity. According to Beldiamond, blockchain technology paves the way for diamond sourcing to become even more transparent and responsible.
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