News
Diamond jewellery sales in India set to increase 15% - 20% on sharp rise in gold prices
Indian diamond jewellery retailers anticipate a 15% - 20% increase in sales during the 2026 festive season, driven primarily by the sharp rise in gold prices which prompts consumers to consider diamond jewellery in more affordable price range...
Today
South Africa mining output falls 12.7% in August on weak PGMs, coal and iron ore
South Africa's mining output declined 12.7% year-on-year in August, according to Statistics South Africa, with platinum group metals, coal, and iron ore accounting for the largest negative contributions.
Today
Aterian expands copper footprint at Azrar project in Morocco
Aterian has identified multiple copper showings and substantially expanded the known mineralisation footprint at the Amane Target of its 85%-owned Azrar Copper-Silver project in Morocco, following initial exploration fieldwork.
Today
Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources identifies region with largest platinum and palladium deposits
Russia retains second place globally in terms of platinum and palladium reserves, while the largest deposits of these metals are concentrated in Krasnoyarsk Territory, according to the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources.
Today
Tharisa meets FY2026 guidance, Karo Platinum fully funded as net debt swings to $51m
Tharisa has reported full-year production in line with guidance for both platinum group metals (PGMs) and chrome concentrates, while confirming its Karo Platinum project in Zimbabwe is now fully funded following a $300 million bond issue.
Yesterday
Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures, New Study Finds
05 october 2021
(sciencealert.com) - Despite humanity's intense fascination with sparkly pieces of carbon, it seems there is still plenty to learn about how diamonds form deep within our planet. New research has discovered that two different types of rare diamonds share a common origin story – the recycling of once-living organisms over 400 kilometers (250 miles) below the surface.
Platinum jewellery demand held up well in the second quarter
04 october 2021
(miningweekly.com) - The latest Platinum Jewellery Business Review, published by Platinum Guild International (PGI), shows that platinum jewellery remains resilient amid a still challenging situation in retail in most markets. Particularly, PGI reports that branded collections are doing well, despite headwinds from the Delta variant of Covid-19 infections globally. Looking at the US market, PGI notes that strong consumer spending, supported by vaccinations and economic recovery, has contributed to remarkable growth in jewellery retail sales, fuelling positive trade sentiment in the second quarter of the year.
The kaiser and the paperweight: how Cecil Rhodes helped inspire the first world war
01 october 2021
The German monarch’s imperial ambitions were fuelled by the British colonialist – as the story behind a recently discovered relic reveals. It was discovered, dusty and damaged, on a warehouse shelf. Recorded simply as a “paperweight” in the depot inventory, it was just one small piece among 30,000 personal items salvaged from Kaiser Wilhelm II’s palaces more than a century ago, and sent on to him in a convoy of 64 railway coaches as he abdicated and fled to the Netherlands after Germany’s defeat in the first world war. But Cornelis Van der Bas, conservator at the Huis Doorn museum, a mansion where Wilhelm reluctantly spent the last two decades of his life in exile, had recognised the trinket in the archive, inscribed “Von Cecil Rhodes Grab, December 1905” (From Cecil Rhodes’ grave), as something more. “It had special meaning for him,” Van der Bas said. For Van der Bas, based on his subsequent research and the past work of scholars such as Wilhelm’s biographer John CG Röhl, the relic, rediscovered in April, offers a vital insight into the relationship between the kaiser, a quixotic and vainglorious man, and Cecil Rhodes, the British imperialist and one of the richest men in the world in the late 1800s, that would soon have seismic repercussions across the globe.
From science project to reality: The ‘hydrogen economy’ is powering up
30 september 2021
(miningmx.com) - What do the 2019-2020 bush fires that ravaged Australia and the future of the platinum and copper mining industries have in common? The former is seen as a catalyst that has shifted the drive to clean energy sources into fifth gear. The latter stand to benefit from this route, even as the internal combustion engine slowly goes the way of the dodo. This is because the road to decarbonisation will in part be paved by the rise of the ‘hydrogen economy’, and platinum, and to a lesser extent copper, are seen as playing a crucial role in this transition.
Why Leonardo DiCaprio’s conflict-free diamonds could soon be made in Spain
29 september 2021
(english.elpais.com) - With Leonardo DiCaprio as investor and advisor, the Diamond Foundry company has made the sun and solar technology key to its choice of location for its new diamond factory project – settling on Trujillo in the Extremadura province of Cáceres, in Spain. As well as being one of the most precious jewels in the world, diamonds are also used in industry due to their properties as a semiconductor, with the potential to convey one million times more electrical current than silicon. The drawback is that nature takes several thousand years to form a diamond underground. Now, however, technology companies such as Diamond Foundry have managed to “grow” the gems, using plasma reactors that reproduce the pressure and heat conditions necessary for their creation. These diamonds – which are free from the negative suspicions often associated with those extracted from the bowels of the earth, as depicted in Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie Blood Diamond – are ready in six to 10 weeks. But the whole process requires vast amounts of energy, which the company wants to draw from renewable sources. Motivated by what he learned from his role in the 2006 movie that exposed the links between diamond mining and the financing of conflicts in Africa, DiCaprio was keen to get behind the project – these are diamonds with no stigma attached. Diamond Foundry sells itself as a company untainted by dubious ethical and environmental practices, stating that its laboratory diamonds have none of the high environmental impact caused by mining.
