(IDEX Online) - IIJS Premiere 2023 says it generated over $8.4bn of business - way ahead of forecasts before the six-day event, and far in excess of last year's show."IIJS Premiere 2023 is estimated to have seen business worth ?,?70,000 crore being generated ($8.438bn) which is far beyond anyone's wildest dreams," said Vipul Shah, chairman of GJEPC (Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Co...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Rio Tinto is to start work in the coming weeks on a huge solar farm that will provide up to a quarter of the power needed during the three-year closure works at its Diavik mine, in Canada.It will install 6,600 two-sided panels at the deposit on the edge of Arctic Circle - to capture direct sunlight and reflections from the snow.The solar farm will be the biggest in Canada, and will...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Brilliant Earth, the US-based "ethical jeweler", reported a rise in Q2 sales, driven by its best ever Mother's Day performance.The total numbers of orders was up by over 21 per cent, although the average value of those orders dropped by 16 per cent compared with Q2 2022 as customers tightened their belts. The average order value was $2,571.Net sales for Q2 were $110.2m a...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Nobody is to be charged over newspaper allegations that HRD Antwerp routinely bumped up diamond gradings.The public prosecutor's office in Belgium has concluded its investigation after claims by De Tijd in March that the lab upgraded GIA-certified diamonds by up to two color grades and one clarity grade. HRD Antwerp, founded in 1973 and wholly-owned by the AWDC (Antwerp W...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Diamond miners walked out on an indefinite strike at Ekapa, in Kimberley, South Africa, on Monday (7 August) to support their calls for a 17 per cent pay hike. The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) says its 700 members at the mine are being paid a "starvation wage".The union's general secretary Irvin Jim said Ekapa had offered a 6.5 percent increase over the ne...Read More
(IDEX Online) - This is the world's most expensive Barbie, in a strapless black evening dress and a one-carat pink diamond.She sold for $302,500 at Christie's New York, in October 2010, more than a decade before the Barbie movie was released last month, grossing over $1bn, and breaking the record for any film with a woman director (Greta Gerwig).The record-breaking doll was was designed...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lucara yesterday announced the recovery of a 1,080.1 carat diamond.It's the fourth +1,000-ct stone from Karowe, in Botswana, since the mine opened in 2012.The Type IIa top white gem quality diamond measures 82.2m x 42.8m x 34.2mm and was recovered from direct milling of ore sourced from the mine's South Lobe.In November 2015, a 1,109-carat stone - the world's l...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Raiders smashed showcases with sledgehammers at a jewelry store in California, USA, and fled with $900,000 of jewelry in garbage cans.The Jewelers' Security Alliance (JSA) said it was just one of 14 smash and grab attacks in the southern part of the state within a month.It warned that such robberies were at "crisis level" and urged retailers to take precautions - and not to ch...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Fancy color diamonds saw slower growth in the last three months, with an increase of just 0.5 per cent in the FCRF Index, which tracks prices across all colors, sizes and intensities.That compares with a 1.3 per cent rise during the first quarter of 2023, as reported by the New York-based Fancy Color Research Foundation, with the biggest increases among yellows.During Q2, yellows d...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Diamcor has reported an increase in rough sales and per-carat prices after battling power supply issues at the Krone-Endora at Venetia project, in South Africa.The Canadian miner said revenue in the year to 31 March was up 37 per cent to $6.29m and average price per carat increased 39 per cent to $340.Diamcor, which acquired the deposit from De Beers in February 2011, has been inst...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Rough diamond sales at Debswana fell by 17 per cent during the first half of this year, amid ongoing weak demand.The 50/50 joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government sold 12.7m carats for $2.179bn, down from $2.622bn during the same period last year, according to the Bank of Botswana.It follows a bumper year for Debswana in 2022, when rough sales increased by almost...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Roland Lorie is stepping down as CEO of IGI after the grading lab was sold for $570m in May, and will be replaced by Tehmasp Printer, who currently manages IGI's India operation.IGI was founded in 1975 in Antwerp by Marcel Lorie and expanded under his son's leadership into a network of 29 laboratories and 18 gemology schools.Printer will take over as global CEO in October...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Two men have been arrested after a bag containing $9.3m of jewelry was stolen from passengers checking in for an Emirates flight from Barcelona's El Prat airport.The stolen Hermes Birkin Bag contained a 47 carat diamond ring valued at $4.93m, a Chanel brooch ($822,000), diamond earrings ($548,000), a Bvlgari watch ($986,000) and $11,000 in cash.The bag belonged to a Russian co...Read More
(IDEX Online) - The US has reportedly blocked $26m of payments made by Indian businesses attempting to buy rough diamonds from Russia.OFAC, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, is said to have instructed banks in recent months to halt the transfer of funds, mostly from UAE subsidiaries of Indian companies.Neither India nor the UAE has sanctioned rough diamonds from Russia. The US has, altho...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Lab growns are the biggest threat to Namibia's diamond industry, according to Namdia, the state-owned trading company.Lelly Usiku, executive market development, sales and brand says they are increasingly popular in China, the biggest retail market after the US.Lab growns are filling a gap left by Alrosa's reduced production, following its invasion of Ukraine, she said, ac...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Demand for larger diamonds - 3.0-cts and above - is strong, say traders at the IIJS Premiere (India International Jewellery Show), currently taking place in Mumbai, India.Ovals, emeralds, pears, marquise and other fancy shapes are also popular. Fancy prices have held up better than rounds - down 25 per cent drop since February, compared to 30 or 35 per cent for rounds.Organizers of...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Direct flights between Surat and Dubai and Hong could begin as early as December.The Indian government has been under increasing pressure to open up the skies as the city opens its vast new bourse.Dinesh Navadia, a member of the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) committee, said a delegation had met civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia."He assured us that from December or in Januar...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Botswana's state diamond company is to introduce alternative sales channels, beyond auctions.It follows a new deal, agreed last month, under which the state-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) will see its rough allocation double over a decade to 50 per cent."ODC auctions are too big and need to be optimized," ODC managing director Mmetla Masire told Reuters."We also need to...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Thirteen miners who were illegally digging for diamonds at Kleinzee, in South Africa's Northern Cape, have died after tunnels collapsed The so-called "zama zamas" were trapped underground as they tried to recover diamonds along the coastline where De Beers had an open cast mine from 1942 to 2009. There is speculation that recent heavy rains may have made the ground unstable. M...Read More
(IDEX Online) - Polished diamond prices suffered another hefty fall during July as geopolitical uncertainties continued to cast a dark shadow over the diamond market.The IDEX Polished Price Index has been losing an average of 1.8 per cent a month over the last year.During July it fell by 2.57 per cent, a slight improvement on June's 3.04 per cent drop, the worst since the current decline bega...Read More