Pink and yellow diamonds from two iconic Rio Tinto mines – Argyle and Diavik – have been brought together to create a unique ring.
It’s called Diavik Midnight Sun and has been valued at $1.24m.
An 18.08 carat fancy intense yellow oval diamond from Diavik, in sub-Arctic Canada, contrasts with an intricate setting of rare Argyle pink diamonds, from the now-closed mine in in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia, weighing 4.09 carats in total.
The yellow diamond was cut from a 36.75-ct rough gem, described as one of the finest large yellow diamonds uncovered at Diavik.
Rio Tinto’s general manager of sales and marketing for its diamonds business, Patrick Coppens said “This combination of a rare yellow Diavik diamond and Argyle Pink Diamonds, the rarest diamonds in the world, is a special moment in the history of Rio Tinto’s unique place in the natural fancy coloured diamond industry.
He paid tribute to luxury jeweler Musson for creating the ring. The Diavik Midnight Sun takes its inspiration from the exquisite natural phenomenon that occurs when the sun is seen at midnight in the Arctic, exhibiting beautiful golden and pink hues.
A rivière diamond necklace was the top seller at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels in Hong Kong on Monday, bringing in $5.9 million.
The sale price for the piece, which features 52 round brilliant-cut, D-flawless and internally flawless diamonds weighing a total of 104.84 carats, was within estimates. In total, the November 28 auction achieved $46.2 million, with 50% of the jewels on offer exceeding their high estimates, Christie’s said Monday.
The company sold 86% of available lots, or 82% by value, and drew global participation from 21 countries across three continents.
The auction also included a collection of jewels from Hong Kong actress Rosamund Kwan, which fetched a combined total of $11.1 million. The two leading lots from that sale saw heavily competitive bidding, lasting over 15 minutes, Christie’s noted. The top item in the group was a necklace featuring a pear brilliant-cut, 22.18-carat, D-color, VVS1-clarity diamond pendant with rubies and pink diamonds, which went for $2.1 million, within estimates.
Here are the rest of the top five:
A jadeite, diamond and sapphire necklace by Etcetera sold for $2.8 million against a presale estimate of $2.6 million to $3.8 million.
This cushion modified brilliant-cut, 60.79-carat, fancy-vivid-yellow, VS2-clarity diamond ring brought in $2.7 million, in the middle of its $2.3 million to $3.6 million presale range.
A round brilliant-cut, 19.61-carat, D-flawless, type IIa diamond ring exceeded its $1.7 million to $2.3 million presale estimate, bringing in $2.4 million.
This oval-cut, 5.32-carat Burmese pigeon’s blood ruby ring with pear-shaped diamonds by Cartier Paris achieved $2.1 million, within its expected range of $1.9 million to $2.3 million.
Jefferson Ncube, an illegal diamond miner from Zimbabwe, works on his latest tunnel at an abandoned De Beers mine near Kleinzee, South Africa.
Bracing against the vibrations of the jackhammer, illicit diamond miner Jefferson Ncube bores steadily into the rock face before him, sending chunks of dry stone clattering to the ground and filling the air with a cloud of pale gray dust. He’s 30 feet below the surface of the desert in the Namaqualand region of South Africa in a tunnel barely tall enough to crawl through.
“I don’t enjoy this at all, but I need the money,” says Ncube, who holds a degree in agricultural science from the University of Pretoria but says he has been unable to find work elsewhere. “I have a family to support, a wife and a 1-year-old child.”
The Nuttabooimine, near the coastal town of Kleinzee, was once mined by the diamond giant, De Beers, the largest of dozens of industrial mining operators who, for the best part of a century, formed the backbone of the region’s economy.
A diamond miner hauls up a bucket of gravel at an illegal mining site in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province.
But over the past 20 years, rising operational costs and a dwindling supply of diamonds have made large-scale industrial mining increasingly unviable. The sector’s steady decline has left a legacy of chronic unemployment in Namaqualand but has also created opportunities for a growing number of desperate young men and women willing to tolerate hardships and dangers as they eke out a living in abandoned mines.
Known locally as “zama-zamas” — loosely, “ones who try their luck” in isiZulu — unlicensed miners like Ncube are considered illegal by the government. Yet here on South Africa’s wild and diamond-rich Atlantic coast, residents say the number of zama-zamas has burgeoned in recent years, fueled by the lack of jobs, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising cost of living, as well as by political and economic crises in neighboring countries.
An ilegal diamond miner breaks up rocks at the Nuttabooi mine near Kleinzee, South Africa.
Earlier this year, South Africa’s minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, described illegal mining as a “plague” amid reports of rampant corruption, extortion and violence linked to zama-zama activity across the country, not only in relation to diamonds but also coal, and other minerals such as gold and chromite. Once confined largely to the country’s estimated 6,100 abandoned or ownerless mines, officials say illegal mining is increasingly spilling over into operational mines too.
Ncube is part of a 12-man team, all of them migrants from Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation and unemployment have made it all but impossible to build a stable life for their families. Out in the desert, living conditions are bleak and working conditions even worse, but with some basic tools and a little knowledge of geology, they manage to make ends meet. The men, almost all of whom have arrived in the past two years, share the work and split whatever profits they make.
Members of an illegal diamond mining collective look down a mineshaft at the Nuttabooi mine.
“We dig down until we hit the bedrock, then we go sideways through this belt,” says Ncube, pointing at a band of rock and gravel on the side wall of the tunnel. “This is where we find the diamonds. In the past, they used hammers and chisels. But if you use a jackhammer, you can take out more rock and then there are more diamonds for you.”
Danger in the tunnels
A zama-zama uses a jackhammer to break up rock in an abandoned De Beers mine.
The miners have little in the way of safety equipment, and their tunnels are prone to collapsing. A little more than half a mile from here, at the neighboring Bontekoe mine, a simple granite plaque in the desert commemorates the miners who lost their lives in a particularly deadly collapse in 2012. Smaller accidents occur frequently and often go unreported. Community leaders say that at least six people have died at Nuttabooi alone in the past few months.
To try to stay safe, Ncube and his colleagues make a point of leaving “pillars” at 6-foot intervals as they tunnel through the ground. But it’s an imperfect system, made harder by the fact that tunnels dug by different groups of miners often collide.
An illegal diamond miner looks out from the top of a De Beers mine that has since been taken over by zama-zamas.
“If the hole is ‘paying,’ people get greedy and they eat away at the pillars until the whole thing is just hanging,” says Ncube. “That’s how some guys died just two holes away from here. If you get greedy you’ll die down here, and then your family will suffer even more.”
After handing over to a colleague, Ncube climbs carefully back up the vertical mine shaft and hauls himself over the edge. At the surface, in a stark, lunar landscape of craters and piles of rubble, zama-zamas cluster together around their holes, sifting through gravel and chatting over the low hum of diesel generators. A few hundred yards away, the old De Beers mine lies abandoned, a massive scar on the face of the desert, hemmed in by towering mine dumps.
“De Beers has taken all the diamonds out of Namaqualand and now we’re back in poverty,” says Andrew Cloete, a longtime illicit miner who lives in a small tent of black and red plastic sheeting in the ever-expanding squatter camp below the Nuttabooi mine. “The companies left us like they found us — with nothing. But if we just sit there thinking about it, our kids will die. So we, the diggers, come in here and take the scraps.”
Andrew Cloete, a diamond miner and activist for mining rights, photographed in his shack in a squatter camp at the Nuttabooi mine in Namaqualand, South Africa. The government considers the activity at Nuttabooi illegal because the miners do not possess permits.
The plight of the zama-zamas
There is a palpable sense of anger, particularly among the miners who grew up in Namaqualand, over how little of the region’s diamond wealth has stayed in the local area. Over several decades, vast quantities of diamonds have been exported overseas, yet most of the area’s roads are still unpaved, service provision is haphazard at best and poverty and alcoholism are endemic. Unemployment in the province stands at over 46%.
“Africa’s f***ed up. We don’t have jobs, all we have is minerals — but they’re being looted by the West,” said one miner, an unemployed mechanical engineer who didn’t want to be named, citing concerns that he may be targeted by the authorities. “This is our Africa. This is our land. These are our minerals.”
Zama-zamas have little bargaining power and are forced to sell their finds to black-market buyers for a fraction of their true value.
Outside Cloete’s tent, men wander through a small city of plastic lean-tos that has sprung up in the desert over the past two years. The camp has enveloped a handful of derelict buildings left behind by the mining companies, where zama-zamas now sleep side by side on filthy mattresses on the floor. The camp, home to around 1,500 people, has no electricity, running water, clinics or sanitation but a surplus of bars and taverns that do a steady round-the-clock trade.
“Nobody would live in conditions like this if there wasn’t a need,” says Cloete, gesturing toward the scene outside. “We’re here because of poverty, hunger and joblessness.”
They’re not getting rich off their diamonds
Diamond miners at an illegal dig site in Namaqualand, South Africa.
After lighting a cigarette, Cloete reaches for a small glass jar and takes out a plastic packet from inside. Carefully, he empties its contents into his palm. About a dozen small, rough diamonds tumble out. On international markets they might fetch a substantial sum, he says, but due to the illegal nature of their work, the zama-zamas have little bargaining power and are forced to sell their finds to black-market buyers for a fraction of their true value.
“They buy diamonds like they’re buying sweets,” complained one zama-zama. “You get people buying diamonds for 100 Rand [about $5.50].”
Cloete, who founded an informal group of mineral rights activists known as the “Mining Fighters,” has spent years petitioning the South African government to find a productive way to formalize zama-zama mining, a move that he says would lead to safer working conditions and a fairer marketplace for local diamonds, as well as bringing in considerable revenue for the government. Similar systems are in place in many other African countries, where so-called artisanal mining, carried out by individuals or small groups using traditional methods and basic equipment, is now a major employer and revenue generator.
A swimming pool lies empty in the town of Kleinzee in the Namaqualand region of South Africa.
The town was once the property of the De Beers diamond company. In its heyday, it was a thriving settlement of 4,000 people with about 30 recreational clubs. After closing down its mines in the region, De Beers sold off the town, which is now largely empty.
But Cloete says he has yet to receive a response. “They treat us like we’re criminals,” he says.
Many in the formal diamond sector would also like to see the legalization and regulation of informal mining, which they say hampers their legal operations and fuels a parallel black market in illegal diamonds.
“At the end of the day, it’s a situation that’s totally unbearable for us,” said Gert Van Niekerk, chairman of the South African Diamond Producers Organisation, an industry body representing legal diamond miners. “This is not the Wild West.”
Kim Cupito
Kim Cupito, who lives with her husband in a derelict building left behind by De Beers, lost her job during the pandemic. “We need to survive, and this is God’s ground. It’s for everybody,” she says.
In Kleinzee, a faded mining town once owned by De Beers, where most homes now lie empty, residents say the influx of illegal miners from around South Africa and neighboring countries has led to a rise in crime.
The uncertain future faced by zama-zamas
“Zama-zamas aren’t welcome here,” said one Kleinzee restaurateur. “They have knives, they have guns, they’re gangsters. They can come and buy things here, but afterward they must leave. We don’t want them here.”
Illegal diamond miners try to get phone reception at a mining site in Namaqualand, South Africa.
In a policy document released in March, South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy announced its intention to create a new police unit dedicated to combating illegal mining. It also laid out plans to make it easier for artisanal and small-scale miners to legally acquire mining rights by streamlining the expensive and time-consuming process of applying for a permit.
Police raids are frequent. In one major operation in July, a combined force of police and other law enforcement bodies backed by two helicopters and a spotter plane raided the Nuttabooi site, arresting over 100 people and confiscating 130 generators and 121 jackhammers, along with other equipment. But within days, mining activity had resumed.
But creating new legislation to support the policies could take time. And critics say it’s unrealistic to hope that many zama-zamas will voluntarily cease their activities, undergo training, comply with regulations and start paying taxes and royalties to the government, especially given that many are in the country illegally and would not be eligible for mining permits.
In the meantime, Namaqualand’s zama-zamas don’t intend to wait around.
“There’s nothing for us out there,” said Kim Cupito, a former fruit trader who lost her job during the pandemic and now lives with her husband in a derelict De Beers building with gravel piled up in the hallways and gaping holes in the roof. “We need to survive, and this is God’s ground. It’s for everybody.”
A 13.15 carat pink diamond will no longer be available at the upcoming Christie’s Magnificent Jewels auction in New York.
The emerald-cut, fancy vivid pink, VVS1 clarity stone, which carried a price estimate of $25 million to $35 million, was poised to be the December 6 sale’s showcase piece. Christie’s described the diamond as one of the largest of its kind to appear at auction.
“Christie’s confirms that the fancy vivid pink diamond ring has been withdrawn from sale in New York on December 6,” a spokesperson said. The company declined to comment further or provide a reason.
The item was scheduled to appear on display in Hong Kong on Friday. The removal was “very surprising,” said one colored diamond dealer in the municipality.
Colored diamonds have had a mixed season at auction. On November 8, the 18.18-carat Fortune Pink fetched CHF 28.4 million ($28.9 million) at Christie’s Geneva, toward the lower end of its presale estimate. The following day, a 5.53 carat diamond from the De Beers Exceptional Blue Collection failed to find a buyer at a Sotheby’s auction in the Swiss city.
With the 13.15 carat pink off the list, the top remaining item at the Magnificent Jewels sale is a pear modified brilliant cut, 31.62 carat, fancy blue diamond pendant with a price estimate of $10 million to $15 million.
A blue diamond pendant will be among the headliners in next month’s Christie’s sale in New York, where it is expected to bring in up to $15 million.
The pear modified brilliant-cut, 31.62-carat, fancy-blue stone, surrounded by white and pink diamonds, is potentially internally flawless, Christie’s said Tuesday. A pear brilliant-cut, 86.64-carat, D-color, VVS1-clarity diamond pendant will join it at the December 6 Magnificent Jewels sale. That piece, which hangs from a chain of 78 diamonds between 0.50 and 2.50 carats, is estimated at $5 million to $7 million.
Other notable items include a torque bangle bracelet bearing a heart brilliant-cut, 50.05-carat, D-color, internally flawless diamond, with a presale price of $3.7 million to $4.5 million. A modified pear double rose-cut, 5-carat, fancy-vivid-blue diamond ring has an upper estimate of $4 million and no reserve. An oval brilliant-cut, 51.60-carat, G-color, VS2-clarity diamond ring carries a high price of $2.8 million.
Christie’s will also offer an unmounted modified pear brilliant-cut, 104.04-carat, fancy-intense-yellow diamond. That jewel has an upper estimate of $2.5 million, as does a round-cornered square brilliant-cut, 107.46-carat, fancy-yellow diamond brooch by Graff. Meanwhile, an emerald-cut, 13.75-carat, fancy-vivid-yellow, internally flawless diamond ring by De Beers and an oval brilliant-cut, 2.21-carat, fancy-intense-blue diamond ring are set to fetch up to $1.8 million each.
Those items join the star of the show: An emerald-cut, 13.15-carat, fancy-vivid-pink diamond ring that Christie’s expects will fetch up to $35 million at the auction.
A portrayal of De Beers’ operations past and present.
Bruce Cleaver reflects on the changes that took effect in the six years he headed the diamond company.
RAPAPORT… Bruce Cleaver had a very focused “to do” list when he took over as De Beers CEO in July 2016. Having previously worked on strategy and business development at the company, as well as at parent Anglo American, he recognized De Beers’ need to evolve, and to protect it from the increasing volatility evident in the global economy and diamond market.
“I wanted to build a more sustainable business; one that was less prone to economic cycles,” Cleaver stresses in an interview with Rapaport News. “I wanted to ensure we’d never get caught in the position we had in 2008 when we hit a very serious downturn and our balance sheet was very stretched.”
Bruce Cleaver
He never imagined those goals would be challenged by a global pandemic and a war in Ukraine that has brought sanctions on Russian diamonds — approximately one-third of global rough supply. These aren’t events you predict in your risk analysis, he notes.
In contrast to 2008, when De Beers had to take on more debt to weather the financial crisis, the company emerged from Covid-19 stronger than before, and it may even have benefited from the limitations on Russia-based Alrosa — its biggest competitor. The $491 million in underlying earnings it reported in the first six months of 2022 was its best half-year profit since 2011, and the $3.54 billion in revenue its highest since 2014 (see graph).
But Cleaver looks beyond the financials as he reflects on his tenure at the helm of the world’s largest diamond company. His six-and-a-half-year stint brought a significant transformation to De Beers’ structure, brand positioning, messaging, and relationships, all of which he believes demonstrate transparency and a willingness to change that were not always evident at the company.
Call to collaborate
His first public statement after being appointed to the position called for greater cooperation and partnerships within the trade. He actively sought to ease the tension that often stood between De Beers and sightholders and at times its government partners, he admits.
“It was important for us to show people we would change, listen more and collaborate more,” he reflects. “I do feel there is much more trust now than before, and a sense of working toward a common goal — that we can agree to disagree in a more friendly way.”
Central to achieving that was the refurbishment of the sightholder application process, which he concedes had previously been complicated and intimidating. The current system further demonstrates De Beers’ willingness to be more open and transparent, Cleaver insists. It’s a complicated task, he adds, considering the company distributes some 33 million carats a year and must set criteria to award goods to certain people and not to others.
The sheer volume of De Beers’ production means the company is unlikely to shift away from the sight system any time soon. However, it did tweak its distribution at the beginning of 2022 to provide more bespoke supply by classifying sightholders according to their business type: manufacturer, dealer, or retailer. The move was seen as an attempt to reduce the flipping of boxes on the secondary market and to bring more efficiency to the supply chain.
Special stones to sell
There has been speculation that the Botswana government — a 15% shareholder in De Beers and a joint venture partner in its mining and selling distribution businesses — is pressuring the miner to sell its specials through the parastatal Okavango Diamond Company, in vertically integrated deals with manufacturers. The two are currently negotiating a new 10-year supply deal and the renewal of De Beers’ mining licenses in the southern African country.
Structuring supply in such a way would see the company (and government) take a share of profit from the sale of the resulting polished. Smaller companies have struck similar partnerships, such as Lucara Diamond Corp.’s agreement to sell its 10.8-carat-plus rough through manufacturer HB Antwerp.
Cleaver notes the deeper considerations with which De Beers must contend. “It’s a whole different ball game selling 33 million carats a year than 50,000 carats. We have an offering that we must sort, value, sell, trace and track on a completely different scale,” he points out. “You have to be much more sophisticated, more thoughtful and have a much stronger balance sheet.”
That’s not to say the company is set in its ways, particularly regarding how it sells specials. Last year, it partnered with sightholder Diacore to buy an exceptional 39.35-carat blue rough stone from Petra Diamonds for $40.2 million and share in the profit from the polished. The De Beers Blue, the 15.10-carat, fancy-vivid-blue polished that resulted from that rough, fetched $58.7 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The two companies also teamed up to buy five blue rough diamonds from Petra in 2020, with the resulting polished stones expected to garner over $70 million at Sotheby’s in November (after press time) and December.
“It’s not difficult as a seller of a small volume of goods to find one buyer who will buy one particular stone at a significant premium to the market — that happens to us all the time,” he adds. “We just don’t publicize it.”
Tech at play
Technology has been the central tool to improve the way De Beers sells rough, Cleaver underlines. He teases that the company will introduce various innovations in the next 12 to 18 months that will be “game changers in how we continue to sell in this evolving market,” but he declined to reveal further information about these developments.
Data is also playing a much more important role in enabling De Beers, and others, to make more rapid decisions than before — and that data-centric strategy is being driven by technology, he notes.
In fact, technology is influencing change across all De Beers business units, Cleaver says. That includes at its mining operations, where it is tackling the challenge to “mine more gently,” using less water and energy to be more environmentally friendly. He also highlights the Tracr program — De Beers’ blockchain-driven traceability platform — which is gaining traction and will enable companies to show the provenance of their De Beers supply.
Building forever
That all feeds into the strong focus on sustainability that De Beers has adopted in recent years and the need to show one’s diamond is ethically sourced. While Cleaver recognized the need to talk about sustainability early in his tenure as CEO, the rapidness with which the subject became a focal point for brands surprised even him.
“I wanted to make sustainability a bigger issue, but I don’t think I realized at the beginning just how important it is,” he admits. “Now ‘Building Forever’ is an absolutely key part of everything we do.”
Building Forever outlines 12 goals De Beers has set to achieve by 2030, encompassing four areas it has identified to make a meaningful impact.
Those are leading ethical practices, partnering for thriving communities, protecting the natural world, and accelerating equal opportunity. “These are vitally important not only to our business, but also to our employees, partners and communities across all facets of our operations,” the company emphasizes on its website.
The program gradually emerged as the core message of the De Beers brand, taking its cues from the rising awareness among millennials and Gen-Zers on issues such as carbon neutrality, climate change, and social upliftment. The program is what distinguishes De Beers, and it provides an opportunity to maximize the value of the brand that was not apparent five years ago, Cleaver says.
Cleaning the mess
The evolution of that message paralleled Cleaver’s advocating for more brands across the industry as well as cleaning up and strengthening the De Beers brand. Key to that development was taking full ownership of its name in early 2017, when it bought the 50% of De Beers Diamond Jewellers (DBDJ) that was owned by LVMH.
“It always felt messy having the De Beers name co-owned by someone else,” he observes. “I’m very pleased we’ve been able to unify the brands into one master brand.”
The company sought to leverage its strong name recognition as much as possible. Most notably that played out at retail with the LVMH deal and subsequently renaming the retail operation De Beers Jewellers (DBJ). It also rebranded Forevermark as De Beers Forevermark, and the strategy extended beyond its retail operations to align the whole group into one “De Beers” corporate identity with a common goal.
“I wanted to define a more holistic business strategy: to run the company as one business rather than three separate silos,” Cleaver shares. “I think we’ve been pretty successful in achieving that.”
Staying brilliant
De Beers previously had a more vertical structure, split between the pillars of mining, rough sales and its retail brands. Over the past half decade, it has morphed into a more integrated end-to-end business with every employee, regardless of which area of the company they work, having the same stated purpose: to “make life brilliant,” Cleaver explains.
As such, the outgoing CEO carefully defines De Beers as a “natural-diamond company” with an integrated structure that encompasses exploration, mining, rough sales, and retail brands. Lightbox, the company’s lab-grown business, is considered an “adjacency” that doesn’t fit into the core business model, he insists.
With that structure in place, Cleaver is confident the company can double-down on innovation – as he claims it did with Tracr and Lightbox — strengthen its relationships with the trade and government, and in doing so, lead the industry on big issues such as sustainability. He hopes to continue to influence that path in his new role as cochairman, through which he will take an active role in engaging with external stakeholders.
“It’s important that De Beers pushes agendas and ideas that might be surprising they came from a big organization,” Cleaver discloses. “But when you look at some of the sustainability work done by retailers and sightholders today, it’s fantastic, and I think that we did have some small influence on that — that was all deliberate.”
The industry will continue to evolve because the world will continue to change quickly, he continues. “I’ve tried hard to always think about what the next trend or the next move should be — and why shouldn’t it be us who makes them? We recognize that when De Beers talks, people do listen,” he concludes.
A blue diamond weighing 5.53 carats failed to find a buyer at Sotheby’s Geneva on Wednesday despite being billed as the star of the auction.
The cushion brilliant-cut, fancy-vivid-blue diamond is part of an eight-piece group called the De Beers Exceptional Blue Collection, which Sotheby’s has spread between its various Magnificent Jewels sales. No bids matched the stone’s threshold price for sale, according to a post-auction report by the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF). The piece carried a presale estimate of $11 million to $15 million.
“The blue is an exceptional stone in every sense,” Sotheby’s told Rapaport News Thursday. “It attracted significant interest prior to yesterday’s sale. While we didn’t get to see it sell in the room last night, we are confident it will find a new home very soon.”
Meanwhile, a number of items set records at the November 9 sale, including a 20.16-carat sapphire and diamond ring from Cartier. That piece, which fetched $2.8 million against a high estimate of $2 million, saw a record price per carat for any blue sapphire of Burmese origin ever sold at auction. A 20.58-carat, pink sapphire ring also broke the record for per-carat price, bringing in $1.9 million, or $91,690 per carat, well above its $808,368 upper price tag. A pink sapphire and diamond brooch weighing 92.01 carats by Jean Schlumberger sold for $1.8 million, outstripping its $505,278 high estimate and setting a record price for a piece of jewelry by the designer.
Another notable item at the sale was a pair of unmounted oval-cut, D-flawless diamonds weighing 20.03 and 20.19 carats. The duo fetched $4.2 million, within estimates. A step-cut, 33.13-carat, D-color, VVS1-clarity diamond ring by Cartier brought in $2.9 million, also within its expected range.
The entire Geneva Magnificent Jewels auction garnered $50 million. Sotheby’s will offer two more blue diamonds from the De Beers collection at its upcoming New York Magnificent Jewels sale on December 7.
Lucara Diamond Corp.’s sales dropped in the third quarter as the company supplied fewer large and expensive stones from its lucrative Karowe mine in Botswana.
Revenue fell 31% year on year to $49.9 million, while net profit slumped 86% to $1.8 million, Lucara reported Wednesday.
Sales of rough from Karowe declined 36% to $46.5 million, with volume down 15% at 99,301 carats and the average price falling 43% to $337 per carat. The remaining revenue came from sales of third-party goods on Lucara’s Clara online platform.
Management blamed a decrease in the number of high-value diamonds the company sold to HB Antwerp through the pair’s supply agreement. The Belgian manufacturer is contracted to buy all Karowe rough of 10.8 carats or more, with Lucara receiving a proportion of the final polished proceeds.
In the third quarter a year earlier, Lucara sold four pink diamonds and two white, type IIa stones — weighing 393.5 and 257.5 carats — to HB. As a result of the unfavorable comparison, revenue from the agreement plummeted 46% to $27.1 million.
“Despite the overall decrease in revenue recognized in [the third quarter], diamond-market fundamentals continued to support healthy prices as steady demand and some inventory shortages were reported,” Lucara said. Fluctuation in the availability of 10.8-carat production is expected, it added.
Output from Karowe slid 19% year on year to 78,879 carats for the quarter.
Rough diamonds sales by Debswana Diamond Company jumped 37.5% in the first nine months of 2022, statistics released by the Bank of Botswana showed Tuesday, driven by steady demand for jewellery.
A joint venture between Anglo American unit De Beers and Botswana government, Debswana sells 75% of its output to De Beers with the balance taken up by state-owned Okavango Diamond Company.
Debswana’s January-September sales rose to $3.578 billion from $2.602 billion a year earlier, data from the central bank showed.
In Botswana’s pula currency, Debswana’s rough diamond sales rose 52.5% to 43.237 billion pula reflecting a stronger dollar in the period.
In dollar and pula terms, the nine-month sales top the company’s full-year results in 2021 when sales totalled $3.466 billion and 38.134 billion pula.
Debswana accounts for almost all diamonds produced in Botswana with Lucara’s Karowe mine being the only other operating diamond mine in the country.
Botswana generates about 30% of its revenue and 70% of its foreign exchange earnings from diamonds.
However, De Beers sees the risk of the market slowing down in the coming months due to a deterioration in global economic conditions, reduced consumer spending and continued Chinese covid-19 lockdowns.
“In line with normal seasonal trends, we anticipate that sales in the final quarter of the year will be affected by the normal temporary closure of cutting and polishing factories for the religious holidays in India,” parent firm Anglo American said last week.
De Beers will offer widened concessions to purchasers of larger rough diamonds at its upcoming sight as trading has slowed amid difficult market conditions.
The miner will increase its “buyback” allowance to 20% for 1-carat goods and up at the sale, which begins later this month, industry insiders told Rapaport News this week.
Buybacks are a mechanism enabling sightholders to sell 10% of stones back to De Beers after making their purchases. They are popular among clients when markets are weak, as customers can handpick the least profitable items and hope the miner will offer a good price. For De Beers, they provide a way of promoting sales without reducing prices.
Lockdowns in China and global economic uncertainty have spooked sections of the industry, with De Beers’ move reflecting a split in the market. Companies that usually buy 1-carat and larger rough destined for the Far East have reduced their purchasing, while top US and European brands continue to buy melee, supporting the trade in rough under 0.75 carats, dealers explained. In that context, the miner will maintain its usual 10% buyback allowance for rough under 1 carat.
“People actually did buy a lot [of the larger items] up till June [or] July this year, when they thought China would slowly start opening up again,” a market participant said. “That clearly hasn’t happened, and there are people now sitting on those goods.”
Sightholders are expecting De Beers’ next sales cycle — its ninth of the year — to bring the miner around $400 million after buybacks, compared with $500 million in September. The sight will run from October 31 to November 4. The December sight is also likely to be relatively small as southern African cutting factories shut for the holidays.
The October sight will take place amid the Diwali season in India, for which manufacturers are expected to implement extended production pauses of up to three weeks because of the sluggish market. Many of them have been trying to slash their inventories ahead of the holiday.
“De Beers is not too eager to reduce prices at this stage. I think they want to wait till early 2023 for that,” a sightholder predicted.
