Diamonds are forever. Or are they? Global demand for diamonds is now significantly outstripping future exploration and production for them, which begs the question - will diamonds actually be around forever? And, if so, at what price?

Melissa Sturgess, CEO of Dwkya Resources, an AIM listed diversified minerals exploration company, says the surge is driven by the urbanisation of China and India, and their increasing demand for raw materials. "We are in the middle of an unprecedented global resources boom," she confirms. "Demand for diamonds is increasing and there's concern that the current exploration and production will not meet future demand. Experts talk about billions of dollars of shortfall in the market which means that what we pay today for a diamond may be dwarfed by what we will be paying in a few years."

Sturgess knows her stuff. As CEO of Dwyka Diamonds since 2003 (renamed Dwyka Resources in January to reflect its diversification into gold and nickel exploration), Sturgess has overseen millions of pounds worth of conflict-free diamond exploration and extraction across Southern Africa, of which the lion's share is sold directly to DeBeers. Their nickel and gold exploration is based in Burundi and Swaziland.

With some of the world's biggest mines reaching exhaustion, it is companies like Dwyka who are searching for new resource areas. "The geologists' theory is that the best place to go looking for new resources is right next to where someone has already found them," explains Sturgess. So Dwyka's nickel project in Burundi is currently right next door to one of the largest undeveloped nickel projects in the world.

So how does exploration work? According to Sturgess, it varies from country to country. You generally pay for a lease or 'prospecting license' from the government, then fly magnetic survey equipment over the ground in a helicopter or plane which sends beams down and gives information back up about the ore deposits. Rigs and drills are finally flown in and digging begins. "Tens or even hundreds of thousands of meters of holes get drilled into these ore bodies which can be thousands of metres deep," she says.

"The mining and exploration industry is a bit of a boys club, I've only come across a few female fund managers focused on the area. But I'm relaxed about that. I feel comfortable with the guys and they feel comfortable with me."

It's then the geologists' and mining engineers' job to deliver results. They identify where the gold, diamonds or nickel is by studying the dirt and rock underground, and then bring sections of it to the surface where it is put through a machine which separates the ore from the waste, and treats it so that it is saleable product. "The trick is to bring the smallest amount of dirt from underground to the surface for the maximum amount of valuable ore. Hauling dirt is expensive so the geologists and mining engineers need to work out what areas will give the most payback," Sturgess explains.

If diamonds are a girl's best friend, then Sturgess herself is a rare commodity in the market. "The mining and exploration industry is a bit of a boys club," she laughs, "and I've only come across a few female fund managers focused on the area. But I'm relaxed about all that. I feel comfortable with the guys and they feel comfortable with me which is important when you're all in the middle of Africa and staying in a camp together, as often happens."

Graduating from the University of Western Australia with a science degree, Sturgess did an MBA in corporate and international finance and became aware of the resources sector while working as a management consultant, getting involved in capital raisings for junior mining companies. "I saw this huge entrepreneurialism in Western Australia and wanted to get involved," she admits. "But females running publicly listed companies are not common, so it took me two years of circling to find my entry."

It came with Aquarius Platinum, a platinum group metals producer listed on the Australian, London and Johannesburg stock exchanges, and one of the biggest successes on AIM in the last ten years. While there, she met the chairman of Dwyka, Ed Nealon, who she told 'I want to learn this game'. "He said he'd teach me but didn't really know how to go about it," she remembers, "I said all he had to do was give me a seat at the table to let me soak it all up and I'd work out how to do deals, negotiate and structure transactions." This partnership resulted in her appointment as executive director of Dwyka in 2002 and CEO in 2003.

"The first time I went underground in a mine, I thought it was really exciting. The second time, I started thinking 'Hmmm, there's a lot of dirt between me and the surface'. The third time, I thought there's no real need for me to do this again!"

These days, Sturgess thrives on knowing her company inside out, which means spending half her life on the road. "The longest I'm in one place is four to five days," she admits, though her move from Australia to London this year has helped with South African time zones. Over there, she's visiting exploration sites, negotiating leasing deals with governments and visiting her teams of miners (often well into the hundreds), sometimes taking the cage one kilometre underground and walking around with a geologist.

"The first time I went underground in a mine, I thought it was really exciting. The second time, I started thinking 'Hmmm, there's a lot of dirt between me and the surface'. The third time, I thought there's no real need for me to do this again! The geologist would be telling me about what's happening in the rock face and I'd be thinking that the amount of ground above me is the distance between my home and the beach. Equating the distance became uncomfortable."

Nonetheless, site visits and deal negotiations remain her passion. And although her ultimate aim is for Dwyka to flourish so that shareholders are happy, she'd like her far off future to focus on the hands-on element of her job rather than the finance, budgeting, HR, audit processes and accountancy.

"You can't keep up the pace forever," she concedes, "I'll eventually have more of a balance, putting deals and transactions together in a more relaxed way. But I definitely don't need a career change. I've found myself in an environment that is predominantly male, have worked out how to operate in it and now I love what I do."

Coutts is sponsoring Coutts London Jewellery Week in 2008.  Click here for further information.

By Barbara Walshe