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Gold/Mining/Energy : SOUTHERNERA (t.SUF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Confluence who wrote (3949)	7/9/1999 7:13:00 PM
From: VAUGHN	Respond to of 7235

Hello Confluence Not sure if folks saw this last December or not: FORBES MAGAZINE Maybe an investor's best friend By Benjamin Fulford GUESS WHICH INDUSTRY has taken it in the neck because of the Asian economic slowdown? Diamonds. Luxury-loving Asians have until recently accounted for 40% of the world's demand for the coveted stones. But not now. The Central Selling Organization, a diamond distribution monopoly controlled by South Africa's De Beers, has reduced its sales of rough diamonds by 41% in the first half of 1998 and still has $4.6 billion worth of unsold diamonds in its vaults, up from $4.4 billion at the end of 1997. If that weren't bad enough, the new mines in Canada are about to pour more of the stones out on a depressed world market. Paradoxically, this may have made shares in diamond mines a screaming bargain. For if there is today an oversupply of the stones, there may well be a dearth in the near future. De Beers spokesman Roger van Eeghen says some of South Africa's and Australia's mines are winding down, Russia's require new investment, and production from Angola and the Congo has been disrupted by war. The Canadians will have no problem selling their "quite nice" diamonds, van Eeghen adds. Aber Resources on the Toronto Stock Exchange is a pure play in diamonds—which De Beers, with its outside interests, is not. At $5.30 a share, buying Aber shares is equivalent to buying rough diamonds for $21 a carat, according to Merrill Lynch mining analyst Michael Curran. The average value of the mine's proven reserves is more than double that—$56 a carat. *** I have to dash so I don't have time to crunch it, but I wonder what we are now going for per carat of proven reserves? Have a good weekend all. Regards