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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was another negative 41-52-158. The TSX Venture Exchange fell five points to 608 -- again a record low -- while polished diamond prices edged upward. The summer doldrums continued for Ken MacNeill and George Read's Shore Gold Inc. (SGF). Shore fell 1.5 cents to 17 cents on 168,000 shares despite the company's $5-million drill program at Orion South in central Saskatchewan. Investors apparently expect no surprises -- at least not any good ones -- from the drilling. Cristiano Melcher's MBAC Fertilizer Corp. (MBC) lost one cent to 7.5 cents on 927,000 shares. The company is trying to dig out from a massive debt incurred during construction of its Itafos phosphate mine in Brazil without having to sell the mine at a big loss.

Eric Friedland and Tom Peregoodoff's Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. (PGD), up two cents to 21 cents on 203,000 shares, is pressing ahead with a summer exploration and development program. It expects the work will lead to a larger resource estimate and a crucial preliminary economic assessment of its Chidliak diamond play on southeastern Baffin Island. Meanwhile, the results of the company's 500-tonne test of CH-7 are not expected until mid-November. This is longer than investors had expected. The delay is mainly the result of a long lineup at the processing lab but bad weather on Baffin Island also played a role. (Meteorologists are unlikely to be in Mr. Friedland's good graces. An early spring forced the company to call off large diameter drill holes into CH-6 and CH-44. Now, summer is refusing to come: Frobisher Bay was recently packed with ice delaying the shipping season.)

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