Almost 400,000 migrants left Angola in massive diamond crackdown

Cassidy Gold Corp. recently received an exploitation permit covering all gold resources identified to-date at the company's 100% owned Kouroussa Gold Project located in Guinea, West Africa. This permit runs through to October 14, 2019. The permit covers an area of 16 square kilometres within the company's 949 square-kilometre exploration permits.

La Mancha Resources reports that a fire partially damaged two electrowinning cells at its Hassaï mine, in Northeast Sudan, over the weekend. Although the site is continuing its normal mining and crushing activities, gold production will be partially impacted over the next few weeks until the two electrowinning cells have been replaced.

Investment site Motley Fool says gold stocks such as Newmont, Goldcorp and Freeport-McMoRan are trading as though gold has lost its luster entirely and slipped back below $1,250 per ounce and that this latest bout of weakness in the gold mining shares – occurring when quality producers are awash in record cash flow and cozy profit margins – has yielded valuations remarkably depressed.

Lucara Diamond provided an update on the development of its 100% owned AK6 diamond project in Botswana. The AK6 mine, to be commissioned by year end, will ramp up to full production in early 2012 to deliver over 400,000 carats of high quality diamonds in its first year of operation. As at the end of May there were over 400 construction crew members on site and a total of 326,000 hours worked. With the overall project execution at 64% the project remains on target for process plant commissioning to commence in the Q4 of this year. Engineering is now 91% complete; procurement is at 81%; fabrication and delivery at 55%; and construction at 39% complete.

The World Diamond Council has expressed its regret about the inconclusive end to the Kimberley Process Intersessional Meeting in Kinshasa last week. The main goal of the meeting was to finally resolve the issue of diamond exports from Zimbabwe. This did not happen.

Rio Tinto's $US10 billion-plus Simandou iron ore project in Guinea is rapidly pressing ahead, but not like a typical giant development by the Anglo-Australian mining giant. By the end of the year, Rio is expected to have spent close to $US2bn ($1.9bn) on Simandou, including a $US700 million settlement payment to the government, and to begin construction of a project it has committed to produce from in 2015.

Zimbabwe has been given the green light to sell diamonds from its Marange diamond fields by the industry's leading certification system, but the decision did not have the backing of all members. Participants of the Kimberley Process, which aims to stop "conflict diamonds" entering the market, met this week in Democratic Republic of Congo to discuss the Marange diamond fields but remained divided over a final statement.

The World Gold Council (WGC) produced a draft framework of standards designed to combat gold that enables, fuels or finances armed conflict. The standards, which were compiled together with the WDC’s member companies and leading gold refiners are designed to enable miners to produce a stream of newly-mined gold that is certified as “conflict free” on a global basis. Image of Ethiopian soldier is from Wikipedia.

Perseus Mining Limited (ASX/TSX: PRU) is pleased to announce that the US$85 million Project Finance Facility provided to Perseus’s 90%-owned subsidiary, Central Ashanti Gold Limited (“CAGL”), by Macquarie Bank Limited and Credit Suisse AG has been drawn down. To date, approximately US$152 million of the estimated US$174 million capital cost of Perseus’s Central Ashanti Gold Project in Ghana has been funded by equity capital raised by Perseus. The balance of construction costs will be financed using funds drawn under the debt facility.