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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Wednesday was a weak 42-63-161. The TSX Venture Exchange fell six points to 848 while polished diamond prices rebounded 1 per cent. Matt Manson's Stornoway Diamond Corp. (SWY) gained one cent to 58 cents on 696,000 shares. The company will soon wrap up its big drill program at Renard-2 in Northern Quebec. It is probing the pipe to depths below 700 metres to upgrade an existing inferred resource and add new tonnages. Renard-2 should keep a Renard mine running well beyond the 11-year life projected in a 2012 feasibility study. Cristiano Melcher's MBAC Fertilizer Corp. (MBC) slumped four cents to 10 cents on 8.46 million shares. The company has "resumed continuous production" at Itafos in Brazil and is "attempting to address its liquidity issues." In other words, it is broke and its mine has been running intermittently.

Eric Friedland's Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. (PGD) gained one-half cent to 23 cents on 103,000 shares. The company grossed $15.1-million in its just-expired rights offering. The cash is mainly for next year's bulk sample of three key pipes at Chidliak, on southeastern Baffin Island. The company will recover about 1,200 tonnes, according to Tom Peregoodoff, a geophysicist and former vice-president of exploration for BHP Billiton Ltd., who became Peregrine's executive vice-president of business development in 2012. After drying and the inevitable loss of material ground to bits during reverse circulation drilling, Peregrine expects to retain about 250 tonnes of kimberlite from each of CH-7, CH-44 and CH-6. Drilling will start on CH-7 and CH-44 then wrap up at CH-6, an unusual progression since the latter body is Peregrine's top pipe, with a grade of over 2.6 carats per tonne and a diamond value of about $200 (U.S.) per carat. Tiny tests of the two other pipes suggest a probable diamond content near one carat per tonne with an as yet unknown diamond value. Mr. Peregoodoff says there is a "method to the madness," as the company already has an inferred resource at CH-6 and it wants diamonds from the other two pipes as quickly as possible to prepare similar estimates for them.

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