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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was a ho-hum 53-52-160. The TSX Venture Exchange fell two points to 925 while polished diamond prices slumped about 2 per cent to near their 52-week low. Robert Gannicott's Dominion Diamond Corp. (DDC) jumped 26 cents to $14.81 on 374,000 shares. Dominion should report another sparkling quarter at both Diavik and Ekati, thanks to plant improvements and mining efficiencies. (The company has been having a good year but its stock has not: a share cost $16.83 in February.) Spiro Kletas's Big North Graphite Inc. (NRT) lost one-half cent to six cents on 3.72 million shares. Big North's stock jumped to 10 cents when Blair Way's Flinders Resources Ltd. (FDR: $0.63) made a friendly takeover offer for the company three weeks ago. It has since found its way back home.

James Bruchs and Dr. Michiel de Wit's Tsodilo Resources Ltd. (TSD) gained five cents to $1.20 on 3,000 shares. Tsodilo has acquired the BK-16 kimberlite in the heart of Botswana's diamond district, 37 kilometres southeast of the big Orapa mine, 13 kilometres north of Letlhakane and 28 kilometres northeast of the rich Karowe mine, which is producing big profits for Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC: $2.24). Dr. de Wit, president, expressed delight at the deal, saying the acquisition "affords us an opportunity to accelerate our kimberlite exploration and evaluation efforts in the largest diamond-producing country by value in the world." (Acceleration is not guaranteed: as Sir Isaac Newton observed centuries ago, a body at rest tends to stay at rest and Tsodilo's diamond hunters have been slumbering for a few years.) Dr. de Wit thinks BK-16 could be another Karowe -- a low-grade, high-value pipe -- based on previous sampling. A limited bulk sample years ago averaged 0.15 carat per tonne, comparable with the early results from Karowe. (The latest estimate for Karowe credits the pipe with nearly 70 million tonnes of kimberlite at a grade of about 0.16 carat per tonne. The diamonds carry an estimated value of approximately $400 (U.S.) per carat.)

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