This item is part of Stockwatch's value added news feed and is only available to Stockwatch subscribers.

Here is a sample of this item:

by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a poor 50-82-122. The TSX Venture Exchange slipped four points to 829 while polished diamond prices fell 0.1 per cent. Ken MacNeill and George Read's Saskatchewan diamond explorer, Shore Gold Inc. (SGF), reclaimed one cent to 18 cents on 427,000 shares despite -- no surprise here -- a lack of news.

Dominion Diamond Corp. (DDC), up seven cents to $16.84 on 262,000 shares, says that a prefeasibility study of Fox Deep, another resurrection project at Ekati, will be ready late this year. The company wrapped up open-pit mining at Fox over a year ago, but it has been pondering ways to profitably extract a big diamond resource remaining in the ground. The most likely way to do so would be through underground mining, as Dominion has done elsewhere, but that would depend on the value of the rock deep within Fox as underground mining carries a higher cost. Unfortunately, that seemed uncertain. Although when mining was wrapping up at Fox about 10.5 million carats remained, based on 35.2 million tonnes indicated at 0.28 carat per tonne and another 2.0 million tonnes inferred at 0.35 carat per tonne, the rock value would be worth barely $70 (U.S.) per tonne, compared with over $300 (U.S.) per tonne in Diavik's main pipes, based on Fox's current diamond value.

The remainder is available to Stockwatch subscribers.
Sign-up for a FREE 30-day Stockwatch subscription and SEE NO ADS