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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a poor 41-74-147. The TSX Venture Exchange gained one point to 795 while polished diamond prices were flat. Eric Friedland and Tom Peregoodoff's Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. (PGD) closed unchanged at 23 cents on 80,000 shares. Peregrine, just 13 cents in mid-November, hit a high of 26 cents late last week on word that the company is talking with "various entities" about financing a major exploration program at Chidliak this year. The company has been quiet about the planned program, but it is still believed to be the $15-million of drilling and bulk sampling that the company laid out last summer.

Another company operating under a cone of silence is not doing as well. Ken MacNeill and George Read's Shore Gold Inc. (SGF) lost another one-half cent to 16.5 cents on 229,000 shares as investors await an updated feasibility study of its Star-Orion South diamond project in Saskatchewan, which the company had promised would be complete late last year. The deadline came and went without a peep from Shore's president and chief executive officer, Mr. MacNeill, or from its ever optimistic, but occasionally reclusive, senior vice-president, Mr. Read. The delay is no surprise, as Mr. Read was uncustomarily frank last July, when he rolled out a caution that these studies "always take longer than expected." He was clearly correct, but Shore's loyal retail shareholders are annoyed that they do not know how long the wait is now expected to be.

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