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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Friday was a cheery 55-41-151. The TSX Venture Exchange gained three points to 699 while polished diamond prices edged higher. Matt Manson's Stornoway Diamond Corp. (SWY) gained two cents to 70 cents on 1.28 million shares. The company has an important new shareholder, Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Advisors LLC, which has just bought 38.4 million shares from an even larger shareholder, Orion Mine Finance Management Ltd., which now has 143 million shares. Marc LeVier's financially troubled Great Western Minerals Group Ltd. (GWG) closed unchanged at one-half cent on 3.14 million shares. The company has defaulted on a $4.5-million interest payment and may have to sell its main asset, the Steenkampskraal rare earth deposit in South Africa.

Nicholas Houghton's True North Gems Inc. (TGX) gained one-half cent to 16.5 cents on 64,000 shares. The company's Aappaluttoq ruby and sapphire mine on the western coast of Greenland continues to take shape. Bent Olsvig Jensen, managing director of the company's Greenland subsidiary, says he is looking forward to the completion of the camp in the coming weeks. He will have a limited number of weeks to finish the camp and the rest of the mine if True North is to reach production later this year as pledged by Mr. Houghton, the company's president and CEO. The pace may pick up soon; Mr. Houghton says the area "is experiencing the beginning of spring" -- a bit of Howe Street climatology that seems reminiscent of Winston Churchill's "end of the beginning" speech. With the warmer -- or at least less frigid -- weather, True North is resuming its sealift of supplies. As well, it will soon begin lowering the water level in a nearby lake by 10 metres to provide access to the bulk of the Aappaluttoq orebody.

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