Lucapa granted new five-year exploration licence for iconic Angola mine

Valued at twenty times the price of a white diamond, pink diamonds are also extremely rare with only around 50 or so put out to tender each year. Pink diamonds comprise 0.03 per cent of global diamond production and 90% come from the remote Argyle mine in Australia, owned by Rio Tinto. For every million carats of rough diamonds produced at Argyle, less than one carat will be suitable for the tender which this year will include the three-heart shaped Argyle Semper Suite (pictured).

London-listed Gem Diamonds announced Wednesday it has found the world’s 15th largest white diamond at its Letšeng Mine in Lesotho, which is fast-becoming the richest source of large diamonds in the world. The company  said the type II D 553 carat colour diamond diamond is being analyzed in Antwerp at the moment and has not been named.  Without the occasional large diamond find, the Letšeng pipe would probably be a marginal deposit, but the mine, 30% owned by the King of Lesotho, has also yielded the 603 carat Lesotho Promise turned into a $12.4 million necklace (pictured). The 493 carat Letšeng Legacy sold for $10.4 million in 2007 and the 478 carat Light of Letšeng went for $18.4 million in 2008.

Russia's government-owned diamond producer is reporting sales of rough and polished diamonds of $2.2 billion for the first half of 2011.

Interfax reports Russia state-owned diamond miner Alrosa is up 22% on the country's trading board for unlisted stocks since it was first quoted there on July 18. The price of US$31,495 per share, implies a market value of $8.6 billion. Alrosa accounts for around 25% of world output and for the full year sales of $4.7 billion is expected. The secretive firm has been feeding the market more information recently in anticipation of a 2012 public offering that seeks to raise up to $3 billion.

24/7 Wall St says the global diamond mining industry may be one of the world’s best-kept secrets and diamond mining is not unlike the oil business, where about 100 massive fields supply about half the world’s oil.

BHP Billiton, owner of the Ekati diamond mine, reported revenues of $1.01 billion from diamond sales in the fiscal ear ending June 30, 2011, a 12.1 percent increase from the previous year.

Mountain Province Diamonds said on Wednesday it is breaking off talks with unspecified parties that showed an interest in the company and is instead focusing on advancing its Gahcho Kué project and to arrange its share of the financing which amounts to some $600 million. Shares in the little-traded company jumped almost 8% on the news.

The Ghana government handed over state-owned Ghana Consolidated Diamonds (GCD) to a new investor, Great Consolidated Diamond Ghana Ltd (GCDGL), at a ceremony held on Tuesday in Akwatia, 80 km northwest of here.

The Business Standard reports with gold prices setting new record highs every alternate day, jewellery makers are adopting various methods to minimise its use in diamond jewellery without compromising look and feel. While many have increased mechanisation and reduced manufacturing of hand-made jewellery, others are replacing gold’s weight with diamond to keep investors’ interest intact. Another option is using silver with rhodium plating. Ideally, gold content in diamond jewellery should be 35% in terms of its weight. But, many jewellers have reduced gold content massively in the first half of the calendar year to keep the prices down.