Lucara Revenue -16% in 2015 Despite Exceptional Finds

(IDEX Online News) – Lucara Diamond Corp. announced that its full-year 2015 revenue was $224 million, which represented a 15.7-percent decrease from $265.5 million in 2014.

"The diamond market experienced some weakening in 2015 and we retain a cautious outlook on diamond prices for 2016,” said Lucara president and CEO William Lamb.

“We believe the long term fundamentals for the diamond market remain strong and with the outstanding quality of our Karowe production, which will be increasingly from the high value south lobe, Lucara is in an excellent position for continued financial growth.”

The company was responsible for recovering the second largest diamond ever to be found, the 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona stone, which was also the largest ever recovered from Botswana. Lucara said that the recovery of the Lesedi La Rona and an 813-carat stone demonstrated the capabilities of its newly implemented large diamond XRT recovery circuit.

At the Karowe mine, the company recovered 727 stones greater than 10.8 carats, compared to 815 in 2014. The average stone size of 36.7 carats and the total of 47 stones recovered greater than 100 carats, exceeded the 2014 totals.

Lucara forecasted that Karowe will process 2.2 million to 2.4 million tons of ore, producing 350,000 carats of diamonds in 2016. Revenue is forecast to be $200 million to $220 million.

"In 2016 we are focused on completing the installation of our Mega Diamond Recovery circuit as well as organic growth at Karowe through our deep drilling and exploration programs in Botswana,” said Lamb.