- See also: Diamonds as an investment
The diamond industry can be broadly separated into two basically distinct categories: one dealing with gem-grade diamonds and another for industrial-grade diamonds. While a large trade in both types of diamonds exists, the two markets act in dramatically different ways.
Gem diamond industry
A large trade in gem-grade diamonds exists. Unlike precious metals such as gold or platinum, gem diamonds do not trade as a commodity: there is a substantial mark-up in the sale of diamonds, and there is not a very active market for resale of diamonds. One hallmark of the trade in gem-quality diamonds is its remarkable concentration: wholesale trade and diamond cutting is limited to a few locations (most importantly Antwerp, London, New York, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and Surat), and a single company—De Beers—controls a significant proportion of the trade in diamonds. They are based in Johannesburg, South Africa and London, England.
The production and distribution of diamonds is largely consolidated in the hands of a few key players, and concentrated in traditional diamond trading centers. The most important being Antwerp, where 80% of all rough diamonds, 50% of all cut diamonds and more than 50% of all rough, cut and industrial diamonds combined are handled. This makes Antwerp the de facto 'world diamond capital'. The De Beers company, as the world's largest diamond miner holds a clearly dominant position in the industry, and has done so since soon after its founding in 1888 by the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. De Beers owns or controls a significant portion of the world's rough diamond production facilities (mines) and distribution channels for gem-quality diamonds. The company and its subsidiaries own mines that produce some 40 percent of annual world diamond production. At one time it was thought over 80 percent of the world's rough diamonds passed through the Diamond Trading Company (DTC, a subsidiary of De Beers) in London, but presently the figure is estimated at less than 50 percent. De Beers used its monopoly position to establish strict price controls, and market diamonds directly to consumers in world markets.[citation needed]
The De Beers diamond advertising campaign is acknowledged as one of the most successful and innovative campaigns in history. N.W. Ayer & Son, the advertising firm retained by De Beers in the mid-20th century, succeeded in reviving the American diamond market and opened up new markets, even in countries where no diamond tradition had existed before. N.W. Ayer's multifaceted marketing campaign included product placement, advertising the diamond itself rather than the De Beers brand, and building associations with celebrities and royalty. This coordinated campaign has lasted decades and continues today; it is perhaps best captured by the slogan "a diamond is forever". The De Beers account is now handled by the firm JWT, formerly known as J. Walter Thompson.[citation needed]
Further down the supply chain, members of The World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) act as a medium for wholesale diamond exchange, trading both polished and rough diamonds. The WFDB consists of independent diamond bourses in major cutting centres such as Tel Aviv, Antwerp, Johannesburg and other cities across the USA, Europe and Asia.
In 2000, the WFDB and The International Diamond Manufacturers Association established the World Diamond Council to prevent the trading of diamonds used to fund war and inhumane acts.
WFDB's additional activities also include sponsoring the World Diamond Congress every two years, as well as the establishment of the International Diamond Council (IDC) to oversee diamond grading.
Industrial diamond industry
The market for industrial-grade diamonds operates much differently from its gem-grade counterpart. Industrial diamonds are valued mostly for their hardness and heat conductivity, making many of the gemological characteristics of diamond, including clarity and color, mostly irrelevant. This helps explain why 80% of mined diamonds (equal to about 100 million carats or 20,000 kg annually), unsuitable for use as gemstones and known as bort, are destined for industrial use. In addition to mined diamonds, synthetic diamonds found industrial applications almost immediately after their invention in the 1950s; another 3 billion carats (600 metric tons) of synthetic diamond is produced annually for industrial use—nearly 25 times the mass of natural diamonds mined over the same period.[citation needed]
The dominant industrial use of diamond is in cutting, drilling, grinding, and polishing. Most uses of diamonds in these technologies do not require large diamonds; in fact, most diamonds that are gem-quality except for their small size, can find an industrial use. Diamonds are embedded in drill tips or saw blades, or ground into a powder for use in grinding and polishing applications. Specialized applications include use in laboratories as containment for high pressure experiments (see diamond anvil), high-performance bearings, and limited use in specialized windows.
With the continuing advances being made in the production of synthetic diamonds, future applications are beginning to become feasible. Garnering much excitement is the possible use of diamond as a semiconductor suitable to build microchips from, or the use of diamond as a heat sink in electronics. Significant research efforts in Japan, Europe, and the United States are under way to capitalize on the potential offered by diamond's unique material properties, combined with increased quality and quantity of supply starting to become available from synthetic diamond manufacturers.[citation needed] Since the quality of the best synthetic diamonds is now equal to or better than that of the most perfect natural diamonds, significant changes in the gem-diamond industry may also be forthcoming.
Diamond supply chain
- See also: List of diamond mines
The diamond supply chain is controlled by a limited number of powerful businesses, and is also highly concentrated in a small number of locations around the world. In fact, the amount of power which De Beers has consolidated historically prevented it from direct trade with the United States, as its trade practices led to an indictment for violating antitrust regulations (the case was settled in 2004).[citation needed] The concentration of power only loosens at the retail level, where diamonds are sold by a limited number of distributors, known as sightholders, to jewelers around the world.
Sources
Historically diamonds were known to be found only in alluvial deposits in southern India[citation needed]. India led the world in diamond production from the time of their discovery in approximately the 9th century BCE to the mid-18th century AD, but the commercial potential of these sources has been exhausted.[citation needed]
The first non-Indian diamond source was found in Brazil in 1725. While no commercial diamond production exists in the US, Arkansas and Colorado are the only states to have a verifiable source of diamonds. Today, most commercially viable diamond deposits are in Russia, Botswana, Australia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[18] In 2005, Russia produced almost one-fifth of the global diamond output, reports the British Geological Survey.
There are also commercial deposits being actively mined in the Northwest Territories of Canada, Siberia (mostly in Yakutia territory, for example Mir pipe and Udachnaya pipe), Brazil, and in Northern and Western Australia. Diamond prospectors continue to search the globe for diamond-bearing kimberlite and lamproite pipes.
'Blood' diamonds
In some of the more politically unstable central African and west African countries, revolutionary groups have taken control of diamond mines, using proceeds from diamond sales to finance their operations. Diamonds sold through this process are known as conflict diamonds or blood diamonds. In response to public concerns that their diamond purchases were contributing to war and human rights abuses in central Africa and west Africa, the United Nations, the diamond industry and diamond-trading nations introduced the Kimberley Process in 2002, which is aimed at ensuring that conflict diamonds do not become intermixed with the diamonds not controlled by such rebel groups.[citation needed] The Kimberley Process provides documentation and certification of diamond exports from producing countries to ensure that the proceeds of sale are not being used to fund criminal or revolutionary activities.[citation needed] Although the Kimberley Process has been moderately successful in limiting the number of conflict diamonds entering the market, conflict diamonds smuggled to market continue to persist to some degree (approx. 2–3% of diamonds traded today are possible conflict diamonds[19]). According to the 2006 book The Heartless Stone, two major flaws still hinder the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process: the relative ease of smuggling diamonds across African borders and giving phony histories, and the violent nature of diamond mining in nations which are not in a technical state of war and whose diamonds are therefore considered "clean."[20]
The Canadian Government has setup a body known as Canadian Diamond Code of Conduct: ([1]) to help authenticate Canadian Diamonds. This is a very stringent tracking system of diamonds and helps protect the 'conflict free' label of Canadian diamonds.
Currently, gem production totals nearly 30 million carats (6,000 kg) of cut and polished stones annually, and over 100 million carats (20,000 kg) of mined diamonds are sold for industrial use each year, as are about 100,000 kg of synthesized diamond. In 2003, this constituted total production of nearly US$9 billion in value.[citation needed]
Mining
Only a very small fraction of the diamond ore consists of actual diamonds. The ore is crushed, during which care has to be taken in order to prevent larger diamonds from being destroyed in this process and subsequently the particles are sorted by density. Today, diamonds are located in the diamond-rich density fraction with the help of X-ray fluorescence,[citation needed] after which the final sorting steps are done by hand. Before the use of X-rays became commonplace, the separation was done with grease belts;[citation needed] diamonds have a stronger tendency to stick to grease than the other minerals in the ore.
Distribution
The Diamond Trading Company, or DTC, is a subsidiary of De Beers and markets rough diamonds produced both by De Beers mines and other mines from which it purchases rough diamond production. DTC performs sophisticated sorting of rough diamonds into over 16,000 categories,[citation needed] and then sells bulk lots of rough diamonds to a limited number of sightholders a few times a year.
Once purchased by sightholders, diamonds are cut and polished in preparation for sale as gemstones. The cutting and polishing of rough diamonds is a specialized skill that is concentrated in a limited number of locations worldwide. Traditional diamond cutting centers are Antwerp, Amsterdam, Johannesburg, New York, and Tel Aviv. Traditionally, diamond cutters in these cities are Orthodox Jews or Chasidim. Recently, diamond cutting centers have been established in China, India, and Thailand. Cutting centers with lower costs of labor, notably Surat in Gujarat, India, handle a larger number of smaller carat diamonds, while smaller quantities of larger or more valuable diamonds are more likely to be handled in Europe or North America. Demonstrating this, India produces 90% of all cut and polished diamonds by number, but only 55% by value.[citation needed] The recent expansion of this industry in India, employing low cost labor, has allowed smaller diamonds to be prepared as gems than was previously economically feasible.
Diamonds which have been prepared as gemstones are sold on diamond exchanges called bourses. There are 26 registered diamond bourses.[21] This is the final tightly controlled step in the diamond supply chain; wholesalers and even retailers are able to buy relatively small lots of diamonds at the bourses, after which they are prepared for final sale to the consumer. Diamonds can be sold already set in jewelry, or as is increasingly popular, sold unset ("loose"). According to the Rio Tinto Group, in 2002 the diamonds produced and released to the market were valued at US$9 billion as rough diamonds, US$14 billion after being cut and polished, US$28 billion in wholesale diamond jewelry, and retail sales of US$57 billion. [2]
Synthetics, simulants, and enhancements
Natural diamonds have formed naturally within the earth. Synthetic diamonds are created by a man-made process. A diamond simulant is defined as a non-diamond material that is used to simulate the appearance of a diamond.
The gemological and industrial uses of diamond have created a large demand for rough stones. The demand for industrial diamonds has long been satisfied in large part by synthetic diamonds, which have been manufactured by various processes for more than half a century. However, in recent years it has become possible to produce gem-quality synthetic diamonds of significant size.[22]
The majority of commercially available synthetic diamonds are yellow in color and produced by so called High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) processes. [23]. The yellow color is caused by Nitrogen impurities. Other colors may also be reproduced such as blue, green or pink which are a result of the addition of Boron or due to irradiation after synthetisation. [24].
Currently, trained gemologists can also distinguish between natural diamonds from synthetic diamonds. Although it has been claimed that synthetic diamonds are so perfect that it is virtually impossible to distinguish them from natural diamonds, this is not the case. Depending on the type of diamonds (either HPHT produced or CVD produced) and the color of the diamond (colored, D-Z color range or D-J color range) several methods of identification are at the disposal of a gemologist or gemlab: CVD diamonds can be identified through their orange fluorescence, D-J colored diamonds can be screened through the Swiss Gemological Organization's (SSEF)[25] Diamond Spotter and stones in the D-Z color range can be identified through the DiamondSure UV/visible spectrometer which is a tool developed by De Beers. [26].
A diamond's gem quality, which is not as dependent on material properties as industrial applications, has invited both imitation and the invention of procedures to enhance the gemological properties of natural diamonds. Materials which have similar gemological characteristics to diamond but are not mined or synthetic diamond are known as diamond simulants. The most familiar diamond simulant to most consumers is cubic zirconia (commonly abbreviated as CZ); recently moissanite has also gained popularity and has often been mischaracterized as a diamond simulant, although it is sold and retailed as a replacement for diamond. Both CZ and moissanite are synthetically produced. However CZ is a diamond simulant. Diamond enhancements are specific treatments, performed on natural diamonds (usually those already cut and polished into a gem), which are designed to better the gemological characteristics of the stone in one or more ways. These include laser drilling to remove inclusions, application of sealants to fill cracks, treatments to improve a white diamond's color grade, and treatments to give fancy color to a white diamond.
Currently, trained gemologists with appropriate equipment are able to distinguish natural diamonds from simulant diamonds, and they can identify all enhanced natural diamonds. New techniques for creating and treating simulants, such as coating them with a very thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) layer, are making it increasingly difficult to distinguish simulants from real diamonds as well.
Producing large synthetic diamonds threatens the business model of the diamond industry, and the ultimate effect of the ready availability of gem-quality diamonds at low cost in the future is hard to predict at this time.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar