RAPAPORT... Patrick S?(C)vigny will take over management of Stornoway Diamonds following the exit of CEO Patrick Godin amid the company's efforts to streamline its executive team.S?(C)vigny will lead the company as chief operating officer, Stornoway said last week. Godin, who has stepped down from his role, joined the Canadian miner in 2010 as chief operating officer and was named CEO in 2018.Mean...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Tech firm Sarine is to provide "birth certificates" which track the provenance of rough stones being sold by Lucara.The online document, which includes scanned 3D model data, will follow the individual diamond through the cutting and polishing process, and ultimately to the consumer via its Sarine Diamond Journey software.Israel-based Sarine is building on an 18-month partnership w...Read More

Total US sales of watches and jewelry slumped in April, down by an unprecedented 54.7 per cent compared with the same month last year.  It was the first full month of COVID-19 lockdown in the US.Sales in March, which included around two weeks of lockdowns, travel restrictions and store closures, were down 21.1 per cent. This figure, based on actual dollars through the cash regi...Read More

Struggling diamantaires in India are defaulting on payments and going bankrupt because of the COVID-19 crisis, according to media reports. The Times of India details four merchants and dealers in Mumbai and Surat who have collectively been unable to pay debts of $14m. It also says a firm of Surat-based angadias - diamond couriers - is now bankrupt, owing a total of $53m to more than 100 clients.&n...Read More

(IDEX Online) - Trade links between India and China are becoming increasingly strained after the deadliest border clash between the two nations in almost half a century.Twenty Indian soldiers were killed in fighting on 15 June along the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border, in the disputed Galwan Valley, in Ladakh. Chinese casualties have not been disclosed.As a result there are widespread...Read More

The Oklahoma-based company was a fracking pioneer, but faced high debt as fuel prices plummeted during the coronavirus-induced economic slowdown.Read full newsRead More

The Yanomami are the largest of South America's tribes that remain relatively isolated from the outside world.The lust for gold has attracted wildcat prospectors in recent decades, who have destroyed forests, poisoned rivers and brought fatal diseases to the tribe.Today, the Yanomami and localRead full newsRead More

The zero-premium merger of SSR Mining and Alacer Gold could net the new SSR a higher stock price, especially with gold prices risingRead full newsRead More

When investors as a whole start to discount the profound risk brought forth by the socio-economic disaster that is the COVID-19 pandemic, that is when you should be thinking about taking a bit of profit off the table before Mr. Market has a chance to catch everybody by surprise with a second market crash.As we witnessed in the latter part of February, discounting highly uncertain and ominous exoge...Read More

Work at the C??te project done in 2011. (Image provided by former owner Trelawney Mining and Exploration.) Iamgold's 70%-owned C??t?(C) gold project in northern Ontario has received a key federal permitting approval, taking it one step closer to a construction decision.The approval, under the Fisheries Act, is related to impacts on fish habitats and tailings management for the site, located 20 k...Read More

Outotec HIGmill. Credit: Outotec Safety is one of the biggest challenges in the mining industry, especially during construction and equipment installation. At the same time there is pressure to speed up return on investment and minimize plant footprints. The Outotec HIGmill Plant (HMP) is a stand-alone, modular solution for fine grinding that addresses these conflicting requirements.The HMP consi...Read More

I love a good, old-fashioned feud.Hatfields vs. McCoys, Hamilton vs. Burr, Al Capone vs. Bugs Moran, Donald Trump vs. well, everyone.Now we have a new one: Elon Musk versus ... Trevor Milton?Of course you know Elon Musk - the mad genius behind Tesla Motors and SpaceX - but you probably haven't heard of Trevor Milton. He's the founder of Nikola Corp. (NASDAQ: NKLA), which produces heavy-duty semi-t...Read More

Figure: Midnight during the summer solstice, view from camp on Alces Lake, northern Saskatchewan. Image from Appia. Appia Energy (CSE: API) announced Monday that Phase I exploration activities have begun on the company's high-grade rare earth element Alces Lake property in northern Saskatchewan.Appia's 100% owned deposit, according to the company, hosts some of the highest rare earth elements (R...Read More

The Yukon territory, Canada. Image from White Gold. White Gold (TSXV: WGO) announced on Monday that it has started drilling on its Titan Project as well as initiated ground surveys on other high priority targets in Canada's Yukon territory.The 2020 exploration program is backed by partners Agnico Eagle and Kinross Gold and it has been designed to further test existing targets and recent new disco...Read More

Prikro project in the Prikro and Koun-Fao Departments in eastern Ivory Coast (Credit: Altus) Altus Strategies (TSXV: ALTS) has signed a nonbinding agreement with Stellar Africa Gold (TSXV: SPX) for the sale of its Prikro and Zenoula gold projects in C??te d'Ivoire.Altus will receive an initial payment of 2.5-million Stellar shares, with a market value of about C$87,500, and 2.5-million share purc...Read More

Quite a bit has happened in the last few months with the junior mining sector in regards to share prices. Since the big market sell off earlier in March, share prices in most juniors with active projects have retraced back to earlier highs and a whole lot are now sitting on 52 week highs.Earlier in the spring I wrote about Skeena Resources TSX:V-SKE. At the time their share price was around $1.05....Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday June 29 that are worth another look.Mining company BHP Group and steel producer China Baowu Steel Group have completed their first iron ore trade on MineHub Technologies Inc's blockchain-based platform.Poor physical aluminium market conditions have forced people to store excess metal, pushing total aluminium stocks on the London Met...Read More

The mining industry does a huge amount of good for local communities, to say nothing of its essential contribution to society through the materials it produces. Unfortunately, it all too often manages to give itself a bad name, worsening negative perceptions of the sector through accidents, spills and a failure to act as a steward of the environments in which it operates. In the past month alone,...Read More

Huaxing alumina refinery, in Shanxi province of northern China, has closed one alumina production line following an equipment accident, several sources told Fastmarkets on Monday June 29. It could take 20-30 days to return the production line to full operation, removing around 50,000-80,000 tonnes of alumina supply from the Chinese domestic market over the period, according to market estimates. Hu...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Monday June 29 that are worth another look.Mining company BHP Group and steel producer China Baowu Steel Group have completed their first iron ore trade on MineHub Technologies Inc's blockchain-based platform.Poor physical aluminium market conditions have forced people to store excess metal, pushing total aluminium stocks on the London Met...Read More