Petra Diamonds Full Year 2016 Production Up 2%; Revenue Drops 10 percent

(IDEX Online News) – Petra Diamonds Limited today (Monday) announced that its revenue for full year 2015 was down 10 percent over 2014, $425 million compared to $471.8 million. The decline was mainly due to lower average diamond prices along with the impact on grade and product mix resulting from the very mature nature of the current production areas, especially at Cullinan.

The company said that diamond prices on a like for like basis for FY 2016 are expected to remain consistent with prices achieved in the second half of FY 2015, although increased average weighted diamond prices are expected for certain of Petra’s operations due to an increased contribution of ROM (run of mine) versus tailings / other carats for full year 2016.

Production for full year 2015 was up 2 percent to 2.3 million carats, compared to 3.1 million carats in 2014.

The company said its production for 2016 is expected to increase 3 percent-6 percent to 3.3-3.4 million carats and that it is on track to meet its target of 5 million carats a year by 2019.

“Despite the challenging operating conditions being experienced by Petra in this transitionary period, we have recorded further growth in production to 3.2 million carats in FY 2015, which represents record production for the group,” said Petra CEO Johan Dippenaar.

“It is encouraging to see that measures to manage the grade profile at Cullinan have yielded successful results in the last quarter, and are expected to continue to assist until undiluted ore meaningfully contributes to our production profile from H2 FY 2016. The required contracts have been entered into with respect to the construction of the new, modern processing plant at Cullinan, an exciting development at this world class mine.”