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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Thursday was a weak 40-53-158. The TSX Venture Exchange fell nine points to 629, a new 16-year low, while polished diamond prices slipped slightly. Eric Friedland's Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. fell three cents to 19 cents on 485,000 shares. The company is expecting diamond counts from its 500-tonne mini-bulk test of CH-7, one of several potentially economic pipes at Chidliak, on Baffin Island. The company also plans to drill CH-6 this summer to expand its resource estimate. Marc Morin's Ultra Lithium Inc. (ULI) fell one-half cent to one-half cent on 4.36 million shares. The company considers its Big Smoky lithium project in Nevada to be its top prospect but Mr. Morin has been silent since late last year.

James Campbell's Rockwell Diamonds Inc. (RDI), down one cent to 21 cents on 57,000 shares, plans to sell stock worth up to $22-million to repay bridging loans provided by two major shareholders: Benny Steinmetz's Ascot Diamonds Ltd. and Mark Bristow, Rockwell's chairman. The loans were needed to help the company through "a transition phase" -- a time Mr. Campbell also calls a "challenging first quarter" -- in which Rockwell lost $5.14-million (U.S.). The challenge and the transition involved Rockwell selling its Tirisano mine, shutting its Niewejaarskraal mine pending a review, closing the Saxendrift Hill mine for good and purchasing the Remhoogte property, which includes the "flagship" Remhoogte and Holsloot mines. Mr. Campbell's new flagship is performing well: Remhoogte and Holsloot apparently have generated enough cash to repay a small portion of the bridge loans. One hopes this flagship will fare better than did Rockwell's other ships of the line over the years.

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