Diamond Production Rises for De Beers in Q3

London--De Beers’ parent company Anglo American reported a 4 percent year-over-year increase in third quarter diamond production, with a difficult Q3 2015 providing easy comps.

Diamond production for the third quarter Sept. 30 totaled 6.3 million carats, up from 6 million carats in the third quarter 2015, when production was reduced in response to the slowdown in the diamond trade globally.

Production remains down 9 percent year-to-date. At this point last year, De Beers had mined 21.6 million carats of diamonds, compared with 19.6 million this year.

Third quarter production also was down when compared with the second quarter 2016, declining 3 percent.

Debswana, De Beers’ operations in Botswana that it runs in partnership with the government there, posted the greatest year-over-year increase in production at 12 percent.

This was due to the fact that Jwaneng is no longer on care and maintenance, though those gains were partially offset by a 22 percent decrease in production at Orapa due to trading conditions.

Production at De Beers Consolidated Mines, or DBCM (the company’s operations in South Africa), was up 6 percent, largely as a result of processing higher grades at Venetia and increased through-put at Voorspoed. Partially offsetting the gains was the January sale of De Beers’ oldest mining site.

At Namdeb Holdings (De Beers’ operations in Namibia), planned maintenance on one of the marine mining vessels resulted in a 13 percent drop in demand while Canadian production fell 48 percent due to the closing of the Snap Lake mine, which was only partially offset by the opening of Gahcho Kué.

Consolidated rough diamond sales in the third quarter rose 77 percent year-over-year to 5.3 million carats due to improved trading conditions; sales were slow in the third quarter 2015, as the supply pipeline was overstocked with goods.

Commenting on the production results, Anglo American Chief Executive Mark Cutifani said, “The modestly higher production at De Beers is reflective of improved market conditions relative to Q3 2015, but we maintain a cautious outlook.”

De Beers’ full-year production guidance remains unchanged at 26 to 28 million carats.