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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a horrid 50-115-145 as the TSX Venture Exchange lost eight points to 548. Ewan Mason's Star Diamond Corp. (DIAM), down one-half cent to seven cents on 73,000 shares, is still treading water as it awaits approval of its separation agreement with Rio Tinto Exploration Canada Inc. (RTEC) -- a deal that will return a full 100-per-cent interest in the Fort a la Corne project to Star.

Awaiting does not imply waiting, as Mr. Mason, chairman and interim chief executive officer, George Read, senior vice-president of corporate development, and Mark Shimell, vice-president of exploration, are already beavering away on a resource update as the first step toward a full feasibility study of the project. The shoe will drop on that first step before the end of June, the company says, leaving several more months for the market to wonder what the update might show.

The current estimate, now past its eighth birthday, lists 393 million tonnes indicated at 14.1 carats per hundred tonnes across the Star and Orion South pipes, a total of 55.4 million carats. Another 129 million tonnes are inferred at just under nine carats per hundred tonnes, providing about 11.6 million more carats. That full carat count -- 66.97 million -- was earmarked for mining in a 2018 preliminary economic assessment. While that dream sheet included the inferred carats, a feasibility study cannot, so look for Star to do its best to upgrade that rock.

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