Burgundy Buys Yellow Diamonds for In-House Cutting
January 19, 22
(IDEX Online) - Burgundy Diamond Mines has bought a parcel of 350 carats of fancy yellow rough stones, which it will cut and polish at its new facility in Perth, Western Australia.
The diamonds were mined at Ellendale in 2009 and sold by former owner Gem Diamonds to an Antwerp diamantaire who held them in stock.
Burgundy bought the mothballed mine last year and is setting up an in-house production facility to cut its own gems as well as those from third parties.
The newly-purchased stones are all fancy, intense or vivid yellow color stones, from two to five carats, the company said in a statement issued today.
Burgundy also bought a smaller parcel of 150 carats from Arctic Canadian Diamond Company (which bought Ekati from Dominion) in September, including a 24.4-ct fancy intense yellow and a 16.7-ct fancy vivid yellow.
"The purchase of these two parcels of rough diamonds represents continued execution of our strategy to produce revenue from cutting and polishing third-party rough diamonds, while building towards our own in-house production," said Peter Ravenscroft, CEO and managing director.
Ellendale ceased production in 2015 when previous owner Kimberley Diamond Company went into liquidation. It was the world's largest producer of fancy yellow diamonds and had an exclusive supply agreement with Tiffany & Co.
Diamond mining in Australia came to an end in November 2020 with the closure after 37 years of Rio Tinto's iconic Argyle Mine, which provided 90 per cent of the world's pink gems.
Pic shows yellow diamonds bought by Burgundy.