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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a bleak 32-77-156. The TSX Venture Exchange fell 13 points to 854 while polished diamond prices were flat. Lukas Lundin and Eira Thomas's Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC) closed unchanged at $2.05 on 1.06 million shares. Late this month Lucara will auction several more of its huge, top-quality diamonds from its Karowe mine. Based on results from its earlier sales, the auction should generate over $20-million in revenue; perhaps considerably more. Richard Clark's beleaguered RB Energy Inc. (RBI) fell 2.5 cents to 7.5 cents on 6.02 million shares. The company has lost over 97 per cent of its value in less than two years because of production delays and cost overruns at its lithium mine near Val d'Or. Mr. Clark is desperately seeking a big cash transfusion.

Patrick Evans's Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (MPV), down nine cents to $5.34 on 54,000 shares, will need over $500-million to cover cash calls, most of them expected within the next year, as De Beers Canada pressed ahead with construction of the $1-billion Gahcho Kue diamond mine, 250 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife. Mr. Evans seems up to the task: Mountain Province had $40-million in working capital at the end of June and it should close a $100-million equity sale soon. Further, Mr. Evans expects the final documents and approvals for $370-million in bank loans before the end of the year. Having De Beers as a partner was once a liability, according to many of Mountain Province's retail shareholders and perhaps Mr. Evans once thought so as well. He became CEO in 2007 and spent his first year prodding his foot-dragging partner for signs of life. De Beers is now a huge asset, as Mr. Evans's bankers will undoubtedly be pleased the international diamond company is a majority partner at Gahcho Kue.

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