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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Friday was a 52-52-157 draw. The TSX Venture Exchange gained one point to 997 while diamond prices were flat. Patrick Evans's Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (MPV) gained three cents to $5.64 on 79,000 shares. The company and De Beers Canada are building the fourth diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, at Gahcho Kue. Mr. Evans is working on a $370-million financing to cover much of its anticipated capital costs. Jean-Sebastien Lavallee's Critical Elements Corp. (CRE) lost one cent to 29 cents on 710,000 shares. The company has appointed Matthew Starnes to its board. Mr. Starnes is a Montreal-based lawyer experienced in negotiating financings and joint venture deals. Critical is headed to feasibility at its Rose lithium project in Quebec.

Robert Bick's Prima Diamond Corp. (PMD) lost one-half cent to 7.5 cents on 50,000 shares. Prima, one of Howe Street's new diamond explorers, is building its promotion on one of Canada's oldest diamond plays. Unfortunately, it was not one of its better ones. The company can acquire a 100-per-cent interest in the Munn Lake project, east of Snap Lake and west of Gahcho Kue in the Northwest Territories. (Prima will earn its interest from DG Resource Management Ltd. and David Hodge's Zimtu Capital Corp. (ZC: $0.62) by making staged payments totalling $50,000 in cash and 4.5 million shares.) Prima launched its diamond pitch earlier this summer by acquiring the Godspeed Lake property, just southeast of Gahcho Kue. The company also proposes to raise $1-million by selling 8.33 million regular shares at six cents and 6.25 million flow-through shares at eight cents. Both diamond properties will benefit from the cash. Munn Lake was a prime play for Dr. Christopher Jennings's SouthernEra Resources Ltd. in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It spent over $5-million on the play, much of it chasing the source of the Yuryi kimberlite boulder field. (It also drilled deep holes on the southwestern fringe of the property in the hope of encountering the Snap Lake dike.) The Yuryi boulders were diamondiferous and SouthernEra subsequently found bedrock kimberlite but the diamond grades were disappointing. Dr. Jennings was always enamoured with Munn Lake because of the sparkling indicator mineral geochemistry and Mr. Bick, president and CEO, is singing from the same promotional hymnbook. He says bedrock sources for several of the mineral trains remain unidentified. Prima also plans work on Godspeed Lake, although previous results were less promotable and fraught with the same disappointments. Nevertheless, like other explorers grabbing open ground around Gahcho Kue, Mr. Bick is hoping for newsworthy support from the successful Gahcho Kue and Kennady North projects.

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