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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Thursday was a dreary 30-65-172. The TSX Venture Exchange fell 15 points to 755, not far from its 2008 low of 678, while polished diamond prices were flat. Chuck Fipke's Metalex Ventures Ltd. (MTX) gained one-half cent to four cents on 510,000 shares. Metalex plans a 10,000-tonne bulk sample at U2 in Northern Ontario but it has been waiting nearly three years for permits. It now needs a new backer for the multimillion-dollar plan. Aubrey Eveleigh's Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (ZEN) fell three cents to $1.88 on 62,000 shares. Zenyatta has been promising a dream sheet for its Albany graphite prospect in Northern Ontario for over a year. Its latest timetable suggests shareholders may get a Christmas present -- or as some fear, a lump of coal.

Robert Gannicott's Dominion Diamond Corp. (DDC) jumped up to a six-year intraday high of $19.35 today, closing up 39 cents to $18.65 on 232,000 shares. The company's Diavik co-venturer, Rio Tinto, has approved a mine plan for A-21. The pipe, the first of four rich Diavik kimberlites discovered in quick succession 20 years ago, contains a measured resource of 3.6 million tonnes of kimberlite averaging 2.8 carats per tonne, and another 400,000 tonnes indicated at 2.6 carats per tonne. It hosts a further 800,000 tonnes at 3.0 carats per tonne, but as an inferred resource that material cannot be part of the mine plan.

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