(IDEX Online) - Diamond miners walked out on an indefinite strike at Ekapa, in Kimberley, South Africa, on Monday (7 August) to support their calls for a 17 per cent pay hike. The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) says its 700 members at the mine are being paid a "starvation wage".The union's general secretary Irvin Jim said Ekapa had offered a 6.5 percent increase over the ne...Read More
(IDEX Online) - This is the world's most expensive Barbie, in a strapless black evening dress and a one-carat pink diamond.She sold for $302,500 at Christie's New York, in October 2010, more than a decade before the Barbie movie was released last month, grossing over $1bn, and breaking the record for any film with a woman director (Greta Gerwig).The record-breaking doll was was designed...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Diamcor has reported an increase in rough sales and per-carat prices after battling power supply issues at the Krone-Endora at Venetia project, in South Africa.The Canadian miner said revenue in the year to 31 March was up 37 per cent to $6.29m and average price per carat increased 39 per cent to $340.Diamcor, which acquired the deposit from De Beers in February 2011, has been inst...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lucara yesterday announced the recovery of a 1,080.1 carat diamond.It's the fourth +1,000-ct stone from Karowe, in Botswana, since the mine opened in 2012.The Type IIa top white gem quality diamond measures 82.2m x 42.8m x 34.2mm and was recovered from direct milling of ore sourced from the mine's South Lobe.In November 2015, a 1,109-carat stone - the world's l...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Raiders smashed showcases with sledgehammers at a jewelry store in California, USA, and fled with $900,000 of jewelry in garbage cans.The Jewelers' Security Alliance (JSA) said it was just one of 14 smash and grab attacks in the southern part of the state within a month.It warned that such robberies were at "crisis level" and urged retailers to take precautions - and not to ch...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Fancy color diamonds saw slower growth in the last three months, with an increase of just 0.5 per cent in the FCRF Index, which tracks prices across all colors, sizes and intensities.That compares with a 1.3 per cent rise during the first quarter of 2023, as reported by the New York-based Fancy Color Research Foundation, with the biggest increases among yellows.During Q2, yellows d...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Rough diamond sales at Debswana fell by 17 per cent during the first half of this year, amid ongoing weak demand.The 50/50 joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government sold 12.7m carats for $2.179bn, down from $2.622bn during the same period last year, according to the Bank of Botswana.It follows a bumper year for Debswana in 2022, when rough sales increased by almost...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Roland Lorie is stepping down as CEO of IGI after the grading lab was sold for $570m in May, and will be replaced by Tehmasp Printer, who currently manages IGI's India operation.IGI was founded in 1975 in Antwerp by Marcel Lorie and expanded under his son's leadership into a network of 29 laboratories and 18 gemology schools.Printer will take over as global CEO in October...Read More
(IDEX Online) - The US has reportedly blocked $26m of payments made by Indian businesses attempting to buy rough diamonds from Russia.OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, is said to have instructed banks in recent months to halt the transfer of funds, mostly from UAE subsidiaries of Indian companies.Neither India nor the UAE has sanctioned rough diamonds from Russia. The US has, altho...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Two men have been arrested after a bag containing $9.3m of jewelry was stolen from passengers checking in for an Emirates flight from Barcelona's El Prat airport.The stolen Hermes Birkin Bag contained a 47 carat diamond ring valued at $4.93m, a Chanel brooch ($822,000), diamond earrings ($548,000), a Bvlgari watch ($986,000) and $11,000 in cash.The bag belonged to a Russian co...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lab growns are the biggest threat to Namibia's diamond industry, according to Namdia, the state-owned trading company.Lelly Usiku, executive market development, sales and brand says they are increasingly popular in China, the biggest retail market after the US.Lab growns are filling a gap left by Alrosa's reduced production, following its invasion of Ukraine, she said, ac...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Demand for larger diamonds - 3.0-cts and above - is strong, say traders at the IIJS Premiere (India International Jewellery Show), currently taking place in Mumbai, India.Ovals, emeralds, pears, marquise and other fancy shapes are also popular. Fancy prices have held up better than rounds - down 25 per cent drop since February, compared to 30 or 35 per cent for rounds.Organizers of...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Thirteen miners who were illegally digging for diamonds at Kleinzee, in South Africa's Northern Cape, have died after tunnels collapsed The so-called "zama zamas" were trapped underground as they tried to recover diamonds along the coastline where De Beers had an open cast mine from 1942 to 2009. There is speculation that recent heavy rains may have made the ground unstable. M...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Direct flights between Surat and Dubai and Hong could begin as early as December.The Indian government has been under increasing pressure to open up the skies as the city opens its vast new bourse.Dinesh Navadia, a member of the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) committee, said a delegation had met civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia."He assured us that from December or in Januar...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Botswana's state diamond company is to introduce alternative sales channels, beyond auctions.It follows a new deal, agreed last month, under which the state-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) will see its rough allocation double over a decade to 50 per cent."ODC auctions are too big and need to be optimized," ODC managing director Mmetla Masire told Reuters."We also need to...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Police were called to break up a brawl at the Diamond Exchange NYC on Monday (1 August).Blows were exchanged between traders' booths at the marketplace, which calls itself the World's Largest Jewelry Exchange, in Midtown Manhattan's Diamond District.Video of the incident appears to show several men slugging it out, one woman being hit, and one man losing his pants du...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Polished diamond prices suffered another hefty fall during July as geopolitical uncertainties continued to cast a dark shadow over the diamond market.The IDEX Polished Price Index has been losing an average of 1.8 per cent a month over the last year.During July it fell by 2.57 per cent, a slight improvement on June's 3.04 per cent drop, the worst since the current decline bega...Read More
(IDEX Online) - It's a single lab grown diamond, carved into 4.04 carat solid-faceted ring.Dutch Diamond Technologies created it, in collaboration with Belgian jewelry store Heursel, and it was evaluated by GIA, in New York.The lab described it as demonstrating "the fusion between cutting-edge technology and traditional craftsmanship".It was laser-cut from an 8.54 carat lab grown diamond plat...Read More
(IDEX Online) - US watch and jewelry sales fell back a little during June, down by 3.5 per cent according to the Department of Commerce.It follows a small sign of improvement the previous month, when, according to revised figures, sales fell by just 2.0 per cent. By comparison, March and April saw sales drop by 8.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent respectively.Consumers in the US remain he...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Armed robbers yesterday (1 August) escaped with up to $16m of jewelry from a Piaget store, in the latest high-value raid on the Place Vendome, in Paris.Police are reported to be hunting two smartly-dressed men and a woman who held staff members at gunpoint in the lunchtime heist.It's the latest in a spate of raids in the area. Last month two armed men forced staff to open the...Read More