News
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
Israel’s diamond sector poised for revival following tax reforms and De Beers comeback
De Beers, one of the world's major diamond market players, has announced the resumption of its operations in Israel after a nine-year absence, which became the latest sign of revival of the diamond industry in the country.
Yesterday
Kefi Gold and Copper restarts Tulu Kapi development after safety review
Kefi Gold and Copper has resumed development at its Tulu Kapi gold project in Ethiopia following a suspension that began on September 7 after a serious safety incident three days earlier.
Yesterday
Nornickel implements smart melt monitoring system
Norilsk Nickel has installed a smart melt monitoring system at its metallurgical plant in Norilsk in collaboration with Reksoft. The system uses computer vision to assist the converter operator in identifying phases during the tapping process.
Yesterday
ALROSA to help amplify Arctic agenda at UN
In preparation for the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31), ALROSA experts and other stakeholders from Russia discussed a unified approach to strengthening the country’s position and the Arctic agenda at UN climate conferences.
Yesterday
Squirrel Spotting: Price Has Nothing to Do With Value
19 october 2022
(nationaljeweler.com) - (nationaljeweler.com) - Ernest Beaux was a perfumer of some renown, having created the fragrance that became Chanel No. 5. According to biographer Tilar J. Mazzeo, author of “The Secret of Chanel No. 5,” when Beaux was experimenting with different ingredients in the process of creating the fragrance, he added generous amounts of jasmine from the perfume capital of Grasse in the South of France. In doing so, Beaux felt it necessary to warn Coco Chanel that a perfume with so much jasmine would be “fabulously expensive,” to which she reportedly replied, “In that case, add even more.” Chanel’s exhortation to effectively add more cost to the fragrance was uttered in 1920, decades before we would come to understand the effects of pricing psychology on consumer behavior. Her statement foreshadowed the 2021 words of Shankar Vedantam, who wrote “If you want to heighten people’s expectation of a product, just raise its price,” in his book “Useful Delusions: The Power & Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain.”
Lab and Marriage: The Rise of Synthetics in Bridal
18 october 2022
(diamonds.net) - Engagement-ring shoppers are increasingly courting grown diamonds so they can get more carats for their money. Like many merchants, Andrews Jewelers in Buffalo, New York, has been seeing an uptick in sales of lab-grown diamond engagement rings. In fact, this segment makes up some 65% of the store’s total engagement ring sales — much to owner Andy Moquin’s chagrin. “I don’t like selling them, but I can’t ignore what consumers want,” he says. Other retailers find themselves in a similar situation. Gabe Arik, co-owner of Happy Jewelers in Fullerton, California, fields requests for lab-created diamonds in engagement rings daily. He, too, estimates that synthetic-diamond rings account for 65% of his bridal inventory sales. In Philadelphia, about half of the diamond engagement rings that jeweler Sydney Rosen sells feature synthetics, according to owner and president David Rosen.
Note from the publisher
17 october 2022
(diamonds.net) - The basis of business is creating products and services that add value. While creating value is the foundation of any business, capturing value is the purpose of the business. If you can’t capture value, your business is not sustainable and will fail. If no one wants to vote for your product by paying you for it, your product and business will not survive. No matter how good a product is, customers need to know what it is, how to get it, and what it costs. Even if you are the only supplier of water in the desert, people need to know where to find you. On a trip, you need to know where the next gas or charging station is. Communicating this information is the first base of marketing. Marketing can grow much more sophisticated in many ways, but never forget the fundamental added value of the product. If the product does not add value, marketing cannot make it successful.
Only a miracle can keep the next generation of mining engineers in long-term jobs
14 october 2022
(miningmx.com) - Bar a couple of notable exceptions – such as the Rainbow Rare Earths project at Phalaborwa and the Renergen helium and gas project in the Free State province – South Africa’s junior mining and exploration industry is in dire straits. Just how dire was laid out in blunt terms at this year’s Junior Indaba conference by two of the South African mining sector’s most straight-talking participants: financial services and mining consultant Paul Miller and mining lawyer Hulme Scholes. There was none of the corporate speak typically used by mining executives on public podiums: these guys went for the jugular.
Belarus Wants To Head Kimberley Process
13 october 2022
(jckonline.com) - Belarus, the country known for its fealty to Russian president Vladimir Putin and terrible human rights record, has asked to be approved as the 2023 Kimberley Process (KP) vice chair, according to documents seen by JCK. The vice chair is the traditional stepping stone to becoming the chair of the certification scheme, which aims to stop conflict diamonds from reaching world markets. If Belarus becomes the vice chair in 2023, it will be first in line to become the KP chair in 2024.
