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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Wednesday was a weak 74-101-135 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell fractionally to 571. Norman MacDonald and Jason Attew's Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. (OR) rose 38 cents to $22.23 on 596,000 shares.

The company is undoubtedly relieved that its days as a reluctant diamond miner in Quebec are over, but on the other hand it will be far from happy that its diamond stream has run dry. Osisko had been collecting revenue from a 9.6-per-cent stream on the Renard diamond mine in north-central Quebec, but that has come to an end thanks to the bankruptcy sale of the mine to Australia-based Winsome Resources Ltd., a lithium explorer that intends to convert the Renard infrastructure into a lithium processing facility.

Osisko's ordeal by diamonds began in 2017, when the company, then run by Sean Roosen, acquired dozens of royalties, streams and offtakes from Orion Mine Finance Group for $1.13-billion. Just three of the 74 acquisitions were worthy of special mention and Mr. Roosen, chairman and chief executive officer, led that short list with Renard. The diamond mine had just reached production by then, but there were already disquieting signs that the stream might be more a trickle and the mine's cash flow might not be enough to keep the financial wolves from the door of its then public owner, Stornoway Diamond Corp.

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