Rio Tinto Reports 10% Fall In Diamond Production

Mining giant Rio Tinto reports today (Wednesday) a 10 percent fall in diamond production in the fourth quarter of last year compared with the same period of 2002.

The company said production was down 15.3 percent compared with the third quarter of last year while for the whole of last year production fell just one percent compared with 2002.

Fourth quarter diamond production at the company’s wholly-owned Argyle mines in Australia reached 8.31 million carats, down 16 percent on the same quarter of 2002 and a 14 percent decline on the third quarter.

For 2003, Argyle’s diamond production totaled 30.9 million carats, down nearly eight percent on the previous year’s production.

Meanwhile, production continues to increase at the company’s Canadian Diavik firm with 2.3 million carats mined last year.