Hundreds of carats of diamonds unearthed by part-time diggers in India’s diamond-rich Panna district remain unsold after state-run auctions failed to attract buyers.
Farmers and laborers rent small patches of land from the government and regularly recover gems worth potentially life-changing sums.
But many of their finds have been unsold at recent auctions conducted by the Panna Diamond Office, as demand slumps globally and lab growns take ever larger shares of the market.
At the latest sale 64 diamonds, weighing 111.45 carats, were unsold, according to a Free Press report.
It said that in 2022-23, at least 139 diamonds, weighing 255.47 carats were unsold, and in 2021-22, there were unsold 68 diamonds, weighing 73.15 carats.
Panna is said to be home to 1.2m carats. Part-time miners pay $2.70 for the rights to dig a 25ft square patch there and diamond finds are quite common.
In May 2022 farmer Pratap Singh Yadav (pictured) recovered an 11.88-carat diamond and said he’d use proceeds from the sale of the stone to set up a business and pay for his children’s education.
In February of that year another part-time prospector dug up a 26.11-carat diamond which later sold for $193,000. And in February 2021 laborer Rampyare Vishwakarma unearthed a 14.09-ct diamond.
Lucara Diamond Corp. said the long-term natural diamond price outlook remains resilient due to favourable supply and demand dynamics as a result of decreasing production volumes from major operating mines.
“However, the smaller size stones market remains soft as demand is impacted by a weak Asian market and the increasing uptake of laboratory grown diamonds,’’ Lucara said in a press release containing its results for the third quarter of 2024.
“Demand for stones larger than 10.8 carats remains robust, as reflected in the company’s sales in the plus 10.8 category,’’ the company said. It said the G7 sanctions on Russian diamonds over one carat, effective March, 2024, caused some trade delays with import times returning to normal during the quarter.
Lucara shares eased 8.7% or $0.04 to 42 cents. The shares trade in a 52-week range of 63 cents and 25 cents.
Lucara is a member of the Lundin Group of companies. Its currently operating open pit mine at Karowe in Botswana is a conventional load and haul operation. The mine is a producer of large, high-value type 2a diamonds. It is the only mine to have produced four diamonds in excess of 1,000 carats in size.
The open pit mine operations are expected to terminate mid-2025. However, the mine currently has over three years of surface stockpiled reserves, which will be consumed as required while the underground mine operations ramp up to commercial production.
During the third quarter, Lucara said significant progress was made in shaft sinking and lateral development connecting the production and ventilation shafts, with the critical path ventilation shaft being ahead of the July 2023 rebase schedule. At the end of the third quarter, the production shaft had reached a depth of 686 metres and the ventilation shaft a depth of 582 metres below surface. During Q3, the company invested $24.1 million into the Karowe Underground Project (UGP). The UGP is designed to access the highest value portion of the Karowe orebody and is expected to extend the life of the mine beyond 2040.
Highlights from the third quarter included the recovery of two exceptional diamonds larger than 1,000 carats, including the epic 2,488-carat diamond and the 1,094-carat diamond. The company said a total of 116,221 carats of diamonds were sold, generating revenue of $44.3 million in the third quarter.
A total of 104,390 carats were recovered in Q3, 2024, including 96,597 carats from direct ore feed from the pit and stockpiles, at a recovered grade of 13.4 carats per hundred tonnes and an additional 7,793 carats recovered from processing of historic recovery tailings.
On October 4, 2024, the company sold its interest in Clara Diamond Solutions Ltd. Partnership, Clara Diamond Solutions B.V., and Clara Diamond Solutions GP. Clara is a secure web-based digital marketplace designed to transact single diamonds between 1.0 and 10 carats, in higher colours and quality.
A legal battle over the Idol’s Eye, a 70.21 carat very light blue, eye shaped Golconda diamond, began on Monday (11 November) at the High Court, London.
Two branches of Qatar’s royal family are in dispute over the value of the gem – which could be anywhere between $10m and $27m.
The disagreement is between Qipco, a private investment company run by art collector Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani – a cousin of Qatar’s ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani – and Elanus Holdings, a company linked to the family of former culture minister Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al Thani.
Elanus loaned the diamond to Qipco in 2014 for 20 years, with an option to buy but the two sides disagree over the value of the stone. It is reported to be worth at least $10m, but according to a Reuter’s report, Elanus’s diamond expert has valued it at $27m.
Qipco says Elanus offered to sell the gem in February 2020, but then pulled out. Elanus disputes this.
Qipco is asking the High Court to force Elanus to go through with the sale.
The Idol’s Eye has a long and complex history. It was recovered in 1600 in the Kollur Mine, part of the Golconda Sultanate in southern India, was initially owned by Prince Rahab of Persia, and was auctioned by Christie’s London in 1865.
It has changed hands many times and has, at various stages, been owned by Harry Winston and Laurence Graff.
Pop sensation Britney Spears says she’s launching her own jewelry brand, to be called B Tiny.
She has already made a fortune from sales of Britney perfumes, first launched in 2004 and said to have generated total revenue of over $1.5bn.
The 42-year-old “Princess of Pop” announced on Instagram that she was “so excited” to launch her first jewelry line, of what she said were “delicate extremely different and one of a kind pieces”.
Her post, which has over 70,000 likes, includes pictures of rings connected by a gold chain to bands around her wrist.
The post gives no further details of the collection, price or launch date.
De Beers says it has identified eight new high-potential kimberlite sites in Angola, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa.
It resumed explorations in the country in 2022, after a 10-year gap, and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in February with Angola’s National Mineral Resource Agency, and its state-owned mining and trading companies, Endiama and Sodiam.
Aerial surveys by De Beers have so far identified eight sites in Lunda Sul, the northeastern province that is home to the huge Catoca mine. De Beers is now exploring six more areas, together with Endiama.
Angola has yet to explore 60 per cent of its diamond-rich territories. It opened its new Luele diamond mine last November, in a move that is forecast to increase annual production from 9.7m carats in 2023 to 14.6m carats this year.
Under the terms of the MoU there will be a review of kimberlite deposits to be explored and the transparency and traceability of diamond production will be promoted.
Mountain Province reported increased net losses for the latest quarter as prices keep on dropping in a “challenging market”.
The Canadian miner today (7 November) announced a net loss of $13.6m for the three months to 30 September, following on from a $4.7m loss in Q2 (all figures are in US dollars).
“In Q3 2024 our sales achieved 100 per cent sell-through with no unsold stock held at the end of September and a higher average selling price than the three preceding quarters,” said Reid Mackie, VP sales and marketing at Mountain Province.
The average price per carat was, however, down 21 per cent on a year ago – from $95 to $75.
The company sold a 679,599 carats were sold for $50.8m, compared to 478,653 carats in Q3 2023 for $45.3m. Year-on-year the number of carats sold was up almost 30 per cent, but revenue increased by just 12 per cent.
Adjusted EBITDA was $12.5m and loss from mine operations was $8m.
As for operations at the Gahcho Kue mine (pictured), the number of tonnes of ore treated increased 10 per cent year-on-year, but the number of carats recovered fell by 10 per cent.
CEO Mark Wall explained that this was “driven by planned lower grade in Q3 and unplanned lower grade in March and early Q2 of 2024”.
He said that while the diamond market had been disappointing, he was optimistic that the price environment would recover during 2025 and that it would be followed by a very strong production year in 2026.
LVMH saw revenue from its watch and jewelry division slip by 5 per cent during the first nine months of 2024 to $8.2bn.
Across all its 75 maisons the French luxury conglomerate reported a 2 per cent dip for the same period, to $66.1bn.
LVMH said it had shown “good resilience” and that it remained confident in an uncertain economic and geopolitical environment
It said it would “maintain a strategy focused on continuously enhancing the desirability of its brands, drawing on the authenticity and quality of its products, excellence in distribution and agile organization.”
LVMH’s eight watch and jewlery brands – Bvlgari, Chaumet, Fred, Hublot, Repossi, Tag Heuer, Tiffany & Co and Zenith – generated a total of $11.8bn in 2023. The company does not provide a brand-by-brand earnings breakdown.
It said the third quarter decline in revenue across all LVMH brands was largely due to a stronger yen and lower growth in Japan.
Russia’s Finance Ministry is considering new purchases of rough diamonds from Alrosa for the State Precious Metals and Gemstones Repository (Gokhran) in 2025, Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev told reporters on the sidelines of the Moscow Financial Forum.
“We are considering this possibility,” Moiseyev said in response to possibly resuming purchases. “In order to allow Alrosa the opportunity to be calm and not feel obliged to sell on the market in order to maintain its liquidity position. Because the market looks alarming.”
The government could use budgetary allocations for precious metals and stones to purchase rough diamonds. The purchase limit is planned at 51.5 billion rubles for next year, Moiseyev said.
It became known in March that Alrosa and the Finance Ministry had concluded an agreement to buy out part of the raw materials produced in 2024 and completed a transaction for the first consignment of rough diamonds. There have been no reports since then regarding Alrosa purchasing diamonds from Gokhran.
“There are no plans for this year, though we are considering the possibility for next year,” Moiseyev said. “In general, this is all confidential, so we may not announce it.”
A select few with deep pockets are rolling into Perth to snap up the latest collection of Argyle diamonds, as unsold inventory of the ultra-rare gems whittles down to a “teaspoon”.
A top secret location in the CBD this week will host prospective buyers from Australia and overseas vying for 76 polished pink, red, and other coloured diamonds — predominantly unearthed at Rio Tinto’s shuttered Argyle mine in the east Kimberley region.
Argyle operated for 37 years up until 2020, and about 95 per cent of the world’s circulation of pink and red diamonds can be traced back to the mine.
Each carat of an Argyle pink or red can easily fetch a multi-million-dollar sum. Earlier this year a 1.56ct Argyle red sold for $US4.3 million ($6.4m) in Geneva, equating to $US2.7m a carat. One of the pinks in the latest collection weighs 2.63ct.
But not all of the famed gems sold are destined for an extravagant jewellery piece, with many opting to keep their purchase locked away in a vault as an investment.
“We have seen double digit price growth year on year for the past 20 years . . . and we seeing demand continue unabated for these stones,” Rio Tinto diamond sales and business development manager Michelle Sherring told The West Australian.
“The constrained supply means the value of pink diamonds has eclipsed any kind of comparable equity indices, like the Dow Jones and Hang Seng et cetera, over the years.”
Since mining ceased at Argyle Rio has touted each of its annual tenders for the diamonds as being one of the last.
“We now have a mere teaspoon (of unsold Argyle pinks and reds) remaining within our own inventory,” Ms Sherring said.
Stockpiles are now so low that for the first time ever the collection includes diamonds Rio has bought back from customers.
“Including the secondary market is a new concept for this year, we have very strong relationships with our long running customers,” Ms Sheering said.
“So I approached a handful of them at the beginning of the year in terms of the concept and we have over these years understood where some of the important diamonds sit and which safes they might be held in.
“It was a process of curation, and ultimately, what we have is a set of seven round diamonds which represent the real pinnacle of rarity.”
Of the 76 stones in the latest collection, 74 are from Argyle — the pink, red and blue diamonds — while the remaining two are a yellow and white diamond sourced from Rio’s Daivik mine in Canada.
Rio is displaying the collection — comprising 48 separate lots and weighing a combined 39.44 carats — on an invite-only basis in Perth, London, Singapore and Belgium. Bids for the tender will close on November 18.
Murray Rayner, who was previously the chief geologist for Argyle Diamonds, last year told The West that the existence of Argyle’s pink diamonds was due to a “fluke of nature” that will be extremely difficult to replicate.
Mr Rayner said the pink diamonds emerged around 1.8 billion years ago when the Kimberley collided into Australia, bringing pink diamonds closer to the Earth’s surface.
These pink diamonds were originally created at one point three billion years ago when our planet’s once-connected continents began to rip apart, with the intense pressure from this event causing the pink colouration in the diamonds.
“To find another deposit would be an extraordinarily rare event in its own right, we’ve looked over the last few decades without any success,” he said.
The near-empty Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) is hoping the arrival of around 40 lab grown traders will signal a change in its fortunes.
The vast new center, recognized by Guinness World Records as the largest office building in existence, was officially opened last December by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi .
It has a capacity of 4,500 offices, but remains virtually empty.
The bourse has, according to local media reports, now reached an agreement with the Lab Grown Diamond Association (LGDA) to relocate around 40 lab grown companies from elsewhere in Surat.
Mahesh Gadhvi, CEO at SDB, said recently that 250 offices were currently occupied (that’s less than 6 per cent of the total).
“Steadily we are progressing towards opening more offices and starting more businesses from SDB,” he told the business news channel CNBC.
