Dr M'zée Fula Ngenge: Demand for considerable-sized diamonds stronger than ever

The African Diamond Council (ADC) chairperson Dr M'zée Fula Ngenge told Rough & Polished’s Mathew Nyaungwa in an exclusive interview that although overall global diamond prices have been somewhat soft, the demand for considerable-sized diamonds...

02 september 2024

Amplats sees prospects as a standalone company

Anglo has revealed its plans to demerge Anglo American Platinum (Amplats), which has operations in South Africa and Zimbabwe, to optimise shareholder value. Rough&Polished contacted Amplats to comment on this and other issues but was referred...

19 august 2024

WFDB President Yoram Dvash Remains Confident Despite Global Diamond Challenges

Yoram Dvash is President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) having been elected in 2020. He found time in his busy schedule to speak to Rough&Polished about the state of the diamond industry around the world and some of the major...

12 august 2024

Lyudmila Vysotskaya: Amber is a mystical stone, a living substance

Lyudmila Vysotskaya is a Kaliningrad-based amber artist and designer, expert, chairwoman of the Amber Academy and member of the Creative Union of Artists in Decorative and Applied Arts. This summer, visitors could admire the art works by Lyudmila Vysotskaya...

30 july 2024

De Beers shines light on budding jewellery designers

Diamond giant De Beers will this year conduct its bi-annual Shining Light Awards jewellery design competition. De Beers beneficiation manager Kagiso Fredericks told Rough & Polished's Mathew Nyaungwa in an exclusive interview they set aside 4.5 carats...

22 july 2024

Siberian scientists proposed to extract gold from ore with the help of bacteria

03 june 2024
Siberian scientists have developed a unique method for extracting gold and antimony from multicomponent ores, which has no analogues in Russia.
For a more complete and high-quality extraction of metals from ore, scientists proposed using natural strains of bacteria isolated from gold deposits in the region, reports the press service of the autonomous non-profit organization Yenisei Siberia Development Corporation.
The new method makes it possible to reduce electricity consumption for the production of a ton of concentrate by three times. This economical and cheap method is also safer for the environment and at the same time provides high quality and increased volume of extracted gold and antimony.
Gold is used not only in the jewelry industry, but also in medicine, while antimony is widely used to create semiconductor materials, ceramics and phosphors that help grow crops without sunlight, pravda.ru writes. 

Alex Shishlo, Editor in Chief of the European Bureau Rough&Polished