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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was a bleak 56-106-146 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell nine points to 536. Adam Lundin and Dr. William Lamb's Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC) lost one-half cent to 37.5 cents on 23,000 shares.

The company raised eyebrows in mid-August when it replaced then president and chief executive officer, Eira Thomas, with Dr. Lamb, who had previously held the top jobs five years ago. Ms. Thomas, once an exploration geologist, moved to the sales and marketing end of the diamond sector many years ago, while Dr. Lamb remained active with the engineering, development and construction of mines -- and Lucara is struggling with a major expansion of its Karowe mine in Botswana that is over budget and well behind schedule.

Lucara raised more eyebrows late last week when Dr. Lamb revealed out of the blue that the company had terminated the lucrative sales agreement arranged by Ms. Thomas in 2020 with HB Trading BV. The initial agreement had worked so well that Lucara and HB agreed late last year to a 10-year extension of the arrangement. The deal had Lucara provide its special diamonds -- gems weighing over 10.8 carats -- to HB, which would pay Lucara an initial sum and then top up the payment once the gems were sold.

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