News – Page 95 – The Diamond Certification Laboratory of Australia (DCLA)

Higher Costs Hit De Beers Profit

De Beers’ earnings fell in 2018 due to the costs of new initiatives such as its Lightbox synthetics business.

Underlying earnings slid 34% to $349 million, as capital expenditure rose 53% to $417 million for the year, the company reported Thursday. That included outlays related to the launch of De Beers’ lab-grown jewelry brand, as well as its Tracr blockchain program, and Gemfair, which aims to help artisanal miners. It also spent more on marketing, exploration and evaluation in Canada.

Volatile conditions also negatively affected margins in De Beers’ trading unit, it added. Consumer demand for diamond jewelry was strong in the first half, but faltered from July onward amid political uncertainty, unstable stock markets, and the US-China tariff dispute. Manufacturers bought less rough as a result.

“In the second half, the low-priced-product segment came under considerable pressure due to weak demand and surplus availability, the rapid depreciation of the rupee, and a reduction in bank financing in the midstream,” De Beers explained.

Revenue still increased 4% to $6.08 billion for the year, driven by strong consumer demand in the first half, with prices growing 1% on a like-for-like basis. Sales of rough diamonds grew 4% to $5.4 billion, while the average selling price climbed 6% to $171 per carat, reflecting lower sales of cheaper goods in the second half. Sales volumes dropped 4% to 33.7 million carats.

De Beers noted an improvement in sales at De Beers Jewellers, its high-end consumer chain. Revenue from Element Six, its industrial-diamond subsidiary, dropped 5% due to lower sales to the oil-and-gas market.

The company expects some of the group-wide challenges to continue this year.

“The outlook for 2019 global diamond-jewelry consumer demand faces a number of headwinds, including the risk of a potential intensification of US-China trade tensions, the Chinese government’s ability to rebalance economic growth towards consumption, and further exchange-rate volatility,” it said.

De Beers maintained its production forecast of 31 million to 33 million carats for this year, down from 35.3 million carats in 2018. However, profitability could suffer as output from its wholly owned Venetia mine in South Africa enters a lull this year amid a transition from open-pit to underground mining. A larger proportion of production will, therefore, come from mines in Botswana and Namibia that it operates in joint ventures with governments. Those businesses generate lower margins than it receives from deposits it owns completely.

Source: Diamonds.net

Rare 88ct. Diamond to Lead Sotheby’s Hong Kong

A flawless white diamond with a high estimate of nearly $13 million will head up April’s Magnificent Jewels and Jadeite auction at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.

The oval brilliant-cut, 88.22-carat, D-color, flawless, type IIa stone is one of only three oval diamonds over 50 carats offered in auction history, Sotheby’s said Tuesday. The stone — which has a presale estimate of $11.2 million to $12.7 million — is the largest to go under the hammer in more than five years.

“For those who have had the chance to see the diamond, one adjective comes back: ‘breathtaking,’” said David Bennett, worldwide chairman of Sotheby’s international jewelry division. “Barely any diamonds of this weight are known to possess the same exceptional qualities of purity and perfection as this remarkable stone, which is so full of fire and blinding brilliance.”

The diamond comes from a 242-carat rough stone recovered from De Beers’ Jwaneng mine in Botswana, and took several months to cut and polish, Sotheby’s added.

Source: Diamonds.net

Graff To Unveil A Watch Paved With 60 Fancy Yellow Diamonds At Baselworld

For the upcoming Baselworld watch and jewelry trade fair, Graff will unveil an important collection of jeweled watches, each showcasing diamonds using what the company describes as “pioneering jewelry watchmaking skills.” The first watch in the collection was unveiled Tuesday with the entire piece paved with 60 fancy vivid yellow diamonds totaling more than 25 carats. The price of the watch was not released.

To add to the color theme, the diamonds are set on a yellow gold case, bracelet and dial. In order to meet this challenge of setting this many exceptional diamonds on a watch, Sam Sherry, Graff’s head of Technologies, devised a jointing system that Graff has developed over the past few years to create flexible bracelets while optimizing the natural beauty of the stones. Graff’s London atelier worked in conjunction with Graff’s Swiss watchmaking team, Graff Luxury Watches, to create this synthesis of haute horology and diamond setting.

This is not the first time Graff has presented a statement bejeweled watch at Baselworld. In 2014, the first year the luxury brand exhibited at the fair, it was the “Hallucination,” a women’s watch covered in a kaleidoscope of 110 carats of rare fancy colored diamonds. Graff claimed at the time it was “estimated to be the most valuable watch ever created.”

The following year Graff unveiled “The Fascination,” a transformable watch covered in 152.96 carats of white diamonds that was valued at $40 million. The pear shaped watch dial on the center of the diamond covered bracelet is removable and can be replaced with a 38.13 carat D flawless, pear shaped diamond, cut and polished by Graff. When the center diamond isn’t in use on the bracelet it is placed on a shank of a ring. So a woman can wear a pure diamond bracelet, an opulent diamond covered watch with a matching ring, or wear either piece by itself.

In 2017, it was the “Princess Butterfly Secret Watch,” covered in diamonds and gemstones mounted with a an invisible setting. To view the time, the owner pushes on one of the center round diamonds and the butterfly wings slide apart to reveal the watch dial.

Source: forbes.com

Gold miner Richard Duffy appointed new chief of Petra Diamonds

Petra Diamonds has appointed former gold miner Richard Duffy as chief executive as it grapples with a heavy debt load following a period of expansion.

Mr Duffy was previously chief financial officer and head of African operations at AngloGold Ashanti before setting up a company that develops renewable energy projects in Africa.

Mr Duffy “will be critical to drive Petra’s transition from a phase of intensive capital expenditure and expansion to a focus on steady-state, cash-generative operation,” Petra’s chairman, Adonis Pouroulis, said. The appointment comes as Petra faces lower diamond prices and $559m of net debt that it needs to pay off.

Diamond prices were about 4 per cent lower in the six months ending December due to “industry wide lower prices for lower quality” small stones, the company said on Monday. Average pricing for diamonds at the company’s flagship Cullinan mine in South Africa fell to $96 a carat, the lowest six-month level since 2010.

Petra said adjusted earnings before interest tax and other items, or ebitda, fell 6 per cent to $75.6m in the second half of last year. It reported a net loss of $57.9m, from a loss of $117.7m in the same period a year earlier. Revenues rose by 8 per cent to $207.1m as diamonds sold increased by 15 per cent to 1.74m carats. The company said reduction of its debt is a priority.

It has $90.7m in cash at the bank and said net debt is expected to be “largely flat” during the first half of this year if diamond prices remain at the same levels.

Source: ft.com

Botswana Diamonds (BOD) Stock Price Down 12.1%

Shares of Botswana Diamonds PLC fell 12.1% during mid-day trading on Friday .

The stock traded as low as GBX 0.74 ($0.01) and last traded at GBX 0.73 ($0.01). 2,614,274 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 75% from the average session volume of 1,490,000 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 0.83 ($0.01).

Separately, Northland Securities reaffirmed a “speculative buy” rating on shares of Botswana Diamonds in a research report on Thursday, November 15th.

Botswana Diamonds Company Profile

Botswana Diamonds plc operates as a diamond exploration and project development company in Botswana and South Africa. The company’s flagship property is the Thorny River project, a long narrow kimberlite dyke stretching over 7 kilometers located in the Limpopo Province. Botswana Diamonds plc was founded in 2010 is based in Dublin, Ireland.

Gem Diamonds’ Latest Exceptional Recovery a 13-Carat Pink

Gem Diamonds recovered a high quality 13.33 carat, pink colour Type I diamond from the Letšeng mine in Lesotho on 7 February 2019.

The prices for diamonds of this color of diamond are typically exceptional.

In the first half of 2018, when Gem recovered 10 rough stones larger than 100 carats at its Letšeng mine, the highest price achieved was $62,433 per carat for a 2.26-carat pink diamond.

Alrosa exhibits largest pink diamond ever found in Russia

Russia’s Alrosa the world’s top diamond producer by output in carats, has put together a collection of recently found large coloured diamonds, which includes a pink oval gem weighing 14.83 carats the largest of its kind ever found in Russia.

The diamond it was cut from a rough found in 2017 at the Ebelyakh deposit in Yakutia, rated by the American journal The National Jeweler as the best discovery of the year. Before it was mined, ALROSA’s largest pink gem had weighed 3.86 carats.

“Pink diamonds among the blue ones are considered to be the rarest and most precious of all, and the size and clarity of this specimen makes it one of the best to be discovered anywhere in the world in recent years,” Alrosa’s chief executive Yury Okoyemovsaid in a statement. “I am sure that this diamond will be the most expensive in the history of Russia’s gem cutting industry.”

The largest stone in the collection, however, is a deep yellow asscher cut diamond, weighing 20.69 carats.

The largest stone in the group, however, was a deep yellow asscher cut diamond, weighing 20.69 carats. It was cut from a raw crystal with a rare honey hue, which weighed 34.17 carats, also mined in 2017.

Other diamonds in the collection include a pink-purple cushion-shaped stone, weighing 11.06 carats, recognized by the GIA (the Gemological Institute of America) as the largest of its colour in the world.

In the last year, Alrosa has worked on boosting revenue from selling rare, coloured diamonds where demand is stable, although it is a niche business.

According to market analysts, the average price for pink, yellow, blue and green stones has risen consistently by 12% a year over the last few decades, driven by consumers passion for something exotic and unusual. This means they are less affected by other factors driving general diamonds’ supply and demand.

Currently, the global market for polished coloured diamonds is now dominated by Rio Tinto and Anglo American’s De Beers. But state-controlled Alrosa aims to compete.

“The diamonds we are now exhibiting are completely unique, and each of them perfectly embodies the Russian art of gem cutting,” Okoyemov said. “We calculate that the huge potential of our coloured diamonds will very soon enable Alrosa to become the world’s leader in that market.”

The company noted its pink and yellow diamonds will be soon transferred to the GIA for certification.

Liqhobong lights up Lesotho

Firestone Diamonds has announced the recovery of a 70 carat white, makeable diamond from its Liqhobong Mine in Lesotho.

This follows after a 46 carat gem diamond that was recovered in December, sold for more than US$1 million at a recently held sale.

The 70 carat diamond was recovered undamaged and will go on sale at the next tender which is scheduled to take place during March 2019.

Paul Bosma, CEO, comments:

“The 70 carat stone was recovered in the northern, low grade part of the pit in Lesotho where the bulk of our mining will take place in the coming months.

“Although the market for the smaller stones has been under pressure, we’ve seen continued demand and good prices realised for special stones”.

Source: miningreview

ANGOLA’S ENDIAMA: WE WILL MAKE $1.5 BILLION FROM DIAMONDS THIS YEAR

Endiama, Angola‘s state owned diamond company, said it expects to make about $1.5 billion from carats sold in 2019, compared with $1.25 billion realised from 8.47 million carats sold in 2018, Rough & Polished reports.

Endiama, which produced 9.4 million carats last year, said in a presentation held at African Mining Indaba that it expects to produce 9.6 million carats in 2019. In 2018, the company was the world’s fifth largest diamond producer by value.

Late last December, ite was reported that in 2019, Angola will get a second diamond cutting and polishing factory. Neves Silva, the head of Angola’s state-run diamond company Sodiam, promised that the plant will initially be able to process 4,000 carats of rough diamonds per month. Currently, the Angola Polishing Diamonds factory is the only such facility in the country. The second plant, with an estimated cost of $10 million, “will start operating in August and will have a bigger capacity”, according to the same report.

Source: israelidiamond

HRD Antwerp Grades ‘World’s First Wearable CVD All Diamond Ring’

HRD Antwerp has graded what it says is the world’s first ring that is entirely made from a lab-grown diamond made by Dutch Diamond Technologies (DD).

‘Project D’, DD’s name for the ring, took a year to manufacture and was created in honor of the company’s 10th anniversary, HRD said.

“The ring was made from a large piece of a 155-carat rough CVD lab-grown diamond which was polished using laser cutting and traditional techniques into a ring which has 133 facets, compared to 57 for a standard brilliant cut,” HRD said. “The ring has a total weight of 3,865 carats. It wasn’t until 2017 that it became technically possible to grow large enough monocrystalline lab-grown diamond plates.

“This is not the first ring to be created from a single diamond. In 2011, Shawish, a Swiss jeweler, unveiled the world’s first wearable ring made from a single crystal of natural diamond. Additionally, another lab-grown ‘all diamond’ ring, called (RED), was conceived by the Diamond Foundry, but as far as we are aware, the production phase has not yet started.”

Ton Janssen, CEO of Dutch Diamond Technologies, said: “For our 10th anniversary we wanted to create something stunning that would highlight our innovative and high-tech techniques. I think we’ve more than succeeded with the one-off ‘Project D’ ring. It’s a true “European” ring: grown in Germany, cut in the Netherlands and graded by HRD Antwerp in Belgium. HRD Antwerp has a well-earned reputation for delivering a perfect grading system thanks to their sophisticated equipment and dedicated team.”

The quality and carat weight of CVD synthetic diamonds has increased significantly over the last 10 years, taking up to 5 weeks to grow a diamond plate of this exceptional size in a laboratory. Growing a diamond with the CVD process requires a heated mixture of hydrocarbon gas and hydrogen in a vacuum chamber at very low pressure and elevated temperatures (900-1200°), he explained.

“DD might be relatively new to cut diamonds for the jewelry market, but they have created an impressive ring for their 10th anniversary,” said Michel Janssens, CEO of HRD Antwerp. The outstanding cutting and polishing work has resulted in a brilliant light reflection which emphasizes the beauty of the ring.”

HRD Antwerp has thoroughly analyzed the ring and delivered the following grading results: clarity VVS2, color E, Fluorescence Nil, Polish very good and Symmetry excellent. A lab-grown diamond grading report is easily distinguishable from a natural diamond grading report by its green color cover, the lab added.

Source: idexonline.com