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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a weak 76-90-144 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose three points to 554. Dermot Desmond and Mark Wall's Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (MPVD) lost one-half cent to 25 cents on 82,000 shares.

Mountain Province had a solid year mining diamonds at its 49-per-cent-owned Gahcho Kue diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. The company and its majority co-venturer, De Beers Canada, produced 5.56 million carats in 2023, up slightly from the 5.52 million carats it managed a year earlier. Unfortunately, Mountain Province did not do as well with its sales. The company sold its 2023 production for an average of $90 (U.S.) per carat, down from the $112 (U.S.) per carat that it managed in 2022.

The slumping revenues are a concern because rough diamond prices fell relentlessly through 2023 and are off to a bleak start in 2024. While it is not yet known how Mountain Province did with its first sale of the year, its fourth quarter sales were bleak affairs in which the company averaged just $60 (U.S.) per carat. That low value was partly the result of the company also selling the lesser gems that it had held back though the spring and summer when it was hoping for a price rebound that never came. It would therefore be reasonable to expect the company averaged roughly $75 (U.S.) per carat with its normal suite of goods.

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