RE: diamond demand - history shows...ckruel:
Very timely, informative post with a positive outlook in "Robust Outlook" article.
BUT the author says,"...But exploration is difficult and expensive and history shows it takes at least five years from discovery of a kimberlite to the development of a mine..."
"...At least FIVE YEARS!!!..." No kidding and considerably understated. Maybe the author should have shown about FIVE examples worldwide starting with the most recent diamond mines on production and working back in time. Maybe the author didn't because it was too much work and just threw in what seemed to be a quick, hopefully conservative guess.
Well in the case of the Ekati Mine it took from 1991 (first discovery) to 1998 (first production) - 7 Years and APPROX 17 -18 years from start of FIRST Exploration (A) to FIRST Production (B).
In the case of Mountain Province (If it goes on production in 2011) it will be some 16 years from first discovery in 1995. If I assume that they started exploring for diamonds in 1988 (That's when my charts collection shows they appeared as a public company), then from (A) to (B) is something like 23 years.
Nonetheless, given the USUALLY LENGTHY response times FROM start of exploration to discovery TO production, upward pressure on price for rough gem and near gem diamonds would appear EVEN GREATER than the article suggests.
An aggressive price forecast for rough makes it even better for us MPV shareholders.
All this $mell$ like $$$ (and it's about time),
LB