5/21/2023 0 Comments Ruby and blue sapphire together![]() The stones show high clarity and pinkish red to intense red colour. Starting from march in Bangkok and Yangon (formerly Rangoon) some untreated (!) rubies from Murgap in eastern Tadjikistan, near the chinese border, weighing up to 10cts have surfaced. Reportedly ruby prices in Bangkok are already hardening, a classic example of a self-fulfilling-prophesy. Local traders who can afford to hold back their merchandise do so, hoping for increasing prices. The lucky owners of dry mines suffer from dramatically high fuel prices. Some of the affected miners have already switched into the currently much more profitable gold business. On the face of this there will probably be no mining activities for several months to come. In some of the Kadoktak mines in Mogok, which have reached a depth of up to 300m and together account for about 50% of Mogoks ruby production, miners did not manage to exhaust the water after this years monsoon. Bad news reached us from Myanmar (formerly Burma). They hope for an agreement with the governement and a continuation of the mining and milling.Īustralian miners who procuce similarly dark coloured sapphires, sometimes euphemistically termed "midnight blue", have reportedly not been disgruntled by these news. The mine operators claim that conditions of life have improved "from stoneage to internet". Moreover a lot of the regions inhabitants do not earn their livelihood by cultivating paddy but by mining and processing the (dark-) blue to particoloured and yellowish sapphires. Ironically enough agricultural production nevertheless increased steadily since the mine became operational some 20 years ago due to the high mineral content of the excavated material which obviously acts as a first class fertilizer. ![]() The mine operators for example were not in the least concerned about the disappearance of the rivulet due to the mines excessive water consumption. As is generally known the concept of environmental protection has yet to take firm hold in china. ![]() As we have been told by one of them, the chinese government plans to close down the sapphire mines in Shandong by July of this year to protect surrounding farmlands.
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