Rockwell Posts 69% Jump in Diamond Sales Revenues in Fiscal Q4

(IDEX Online) – Rockwell Diamonds Inc. reported that revenues from diamond sales (excluding beneficiation) increased by 69 percent to $12.1 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 that ended on February 28.

Total carat sales increased by 81 percent to 9,596 carats, sold at an average price of $1,264 per carat, a 7-percent decline from a year ago

Total carat production grew 74 percent, made up of 2,676 carats from the firm's operations and 4,041 carats from contractors.

Diamond sales revenues from its own internal operations (excluding royalty mining) increased by 34 percent to $8.5 million.

Commenting on fourth quarter production and sales, CEO and President James Campbell, said: "Rockwell's fourth quarter performance shows progress on a number of fronts with the results all pointing in the right direction and in line with our strategy to focus on the Middle Orange River (MOR). MOR volumes of gravel processed are up 60 percent from a year ago on the back of additional throughput from new capacity and this is in spite of abnormally heavy rainfall as well as service delivery protests that were managed in partnership with local leaders and regional authorities to minimize the impact on our workers and our operations.

"This delivered a 39-percent increase in carat production with the value per carat up 14 percent. We now have three mines in production in the MOR, all of which have multiple mining faces. This has provided us with benefits from production diversification as well as mining flexibility. During the quarter we continued to focus on the fleet optimization program to renew our aging fleet, cost effectively. We are currently reviewing the various financing options that have been presented to the Company and have started the implementation phase.

"Our objective remains to continue our drive to grow our own mining and processing capacity to 500 000m3 per month of quality cubes and increase the recovery of large diamonds."