from Will Purcell
Diamonds & Specialty Minerals Summary for Feb. 3, 2015 2015-02-03 18:15 ET - Market Summary by Will Purcell The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was a negative 52-56-144. The TSX Venture Exchange gained seven points to 692 while polished diamond prices were flat. Lukas Lundin's Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC) closed unchanged at $2.06 on 514,000 shares. Lucara has been quiet so far this year, although its Karowe mine in Botswana continues to produce promotable quantities of big diamonds, although the excitement of unexpected gains in profits appears over. Paul Gill's Lomiko Metals Inc. (LMR) gained one-half cent to 7.5 cents on 1.97 million shares. Lomiko, which is exploring for graphite at Quatre Milles and La Loutre in Quebec, is also touting its modest investment in graphene research plays. Nicholas Houghton's True North Gems Inc. (TGX), up one-half cent to 16 cents on 111,000 shares, will be producing rubies and sapphires from its Aappaluttoq mine on the western coast of Greenland later this year. It has made Hayley Henning its vice-president of marketing. Ms. Henning, showing herself to be at ease with the hyperbole of Howe Street, says she is "thrilled to be a part of this incredible project" and looks forward to contributing her depth of experience and knowledge to introduce True North's gems to the international market. (She probably can be of assistance in marketing True North's gems; she spent several years as executive director of marketing for TanzaniteOne Mining Ltd., which sold tanzanite, another specialty gemstone with a limited supply and demand profiles.) Curiously, while marketing the company's rubies and sapphires would appear to be her focus, both Mr. Houghton, CEO, and Ms. Henning lauded her "corporate social responsibility experience" with TanzaniteOne, which included "various school, orphanage and empowerment projects." (Gone apparently are the days when a mining company's direct contribution to social programs was giving the unemployed a job, and its indirect contribution was in paying royalties and taxes, allowing the government to build schools to empower its citizens.) True North may not be able to do much about the social welfare of Greenlanders unless Ms. Henning is successful at her new job. The little mine, which will cost $38-million to build if all goes to plan, will produce 2.67 million carats of rubies and 18.5 million carats of sapphires over its nine-year life. Still, the company's dream sheet for Aappaluttoq, now over three years old, projected a discounted net present value of just $15.6-million after taxes for the mine, in part because True North had a difficult time predicting the expected prices for its products. So, if Ms. Henning is effective at marketing rubies and sapphires, True North might do significantly better than projected, which is apparently one reason why Mr. Houghton is updating his dream sheet just ahead of Aappaluttoq reaching production.