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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Thursday was a buoyant 78-48-184 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose four points to 615. Many of Howe Street's once booming assortment of junior diamond explorers have drifted off to find new life as explorers for specialty or critical minerals -- or better yet, as gold hunters. Nevertheless, a tenacious few have kept at least a nominal presence in the diamond sector.

One of those is Chuck Fipke and Chad Ulansky's Metalex Ventures Ltd. (MTX), although the company is more of a hybrid these days, having morphed its James Bay diamond project into a scandium project. Nevertheless, the dogged Mr. Fipke, Metalex's founder and chairman, and his long-time fellow traveller, Mr. Ulansky, Metalex's chief executive officer, still carry their all but dormant Kyle Lake diamond project in Northern Ontario and the stalled Viljoenshof project in South Africa on the company's books.

The latter of those projects is the most recent acquisition and is arguably the most promising -- at least if the diamond sector should ever rebound. Four years ago, Metalex agreed to acquire a 70-per-cent interest in the Viljoenshof project through a four-stage effort. First, Metalex agreed to spend about $20,000 to convert the underlying prospecting licence to a mining lease. While the spending is complete -- Metalex shelled out about $24,000 -- the converting is not, and the company now sighs that the "process has not been completed" and the application for the mining right "is still under way."

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