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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a mediocre 79-103-128 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell 10 points to 597. Congo tin miner Alphamin Resources Corp. (AFM) lost six cents to 89 cents on 1.44 million shares.

The Lundin family's Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC) rose 2.5 cents to 39 cents on 135,000 shares. The company had another so-so second quarter mining diamonds at its Karowe mine in Botswana, but a better quarter or two could lie ahead -- although the more distant future is murkier. Lucara earned just $5-million (U.S.) in the latest quarter, a slight improvement over the $1-million (U.S.) profit it recorded in the first quarter of 2023, but these results are handily below the $40-million (U.S.) Lucara pulled in during all of 2022.

Weakening rough diamond prices have limited Lucara's revenues compared with last year, and worse, there have been fewer large, exceptional-quality gems found over the past few quarters. That changed recently, as Lucara has just applauded the recovery of a 1,080-carat, Type IIa top-white diamond. The big rock came from kimberlite mined in the South lobe of Karowe, and more could follow in the coming months, as the mine is again extracting ore from the South lobe, which has a significantly coarser diamond size distribution profile than the North and Centre lobes.

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