Crunching the Numbers

De Beers and Alrosa are not enjoying the best of times. Between them they produce well over half of the world's diamonds, by value. But De Beers has seen Q3 revenue slump by over three quarters, down from $899m in 2023 to just $213m.

Market conditions were so weak it held just one sight during the quarter, rather than three, and it faces an uncertain future with parent company Anglo American planning a sell-off. Meanwhile, Alrosa, Russia's state-controlled miner, is starting to feel the G7 sanctions bite. It latest figures, for the three months to June, show revenue down 34 per cent year-on-year to $680m.

So much for the big boys. How are the minor miners faring? They've produced a flurry of results over the last couple of weeks, with 30 September marking the end of a quarter (variously referred to as Q3 2024, Q1 2025 etc).

The results shown in the table below are very much snapshots. Behind each figure there may well be an intriguing and complex story of how each miner's journey brought them to where they are today. But the bottom line is that of the five miners - representing combined quarterly sales of over $250m - four have seen a year-on-year increase.

Figures from miners' quarterly updates.

So Lucapa had the good fortune to recover some extremely high-value stones from its Lulo mine, in Angola, which is already acknowledged as attracting the highest prices per carat for alluvial diamonds globally. Among those sold in Q3 were a 14-carat pink and several white Type IIa diamonds weighing up to 195 carats. The number of carats Lucapa sold fell by 35 per cent during the quarter, but the average price per carat surged from $1,052 to $3,033.

Gem Diamonds is another niche miner, operating the world's highest altitude diamond mine - 10,200ft above sea level in Lesoth's Maluti Mountains - and bringing in the highest dollar per carat kimberlite diamonds in the world. It has enjoyed a lucky streak of +100-cts recoveries (13 so far this calendar year, compared to just five in the whole of 2023) as well as other high-value stones. Gem sold fewer carats (down 11 per cent) but saw revenue up 36 per cent to almost $43m.

Lucapa and Gem are exceptional. Most miners rely on higher volumes of standard stones, rather than small numbers of million-dollar beauties. Burgundy sold more carats at lower prices, from its Ekati diamond mine in Canada, better reflecting what's happening in the more mainstream diamond market. A similar story at Mountain Province, with a rise in the volume of diamonds sold, but a steep decline in the prices achieved (down 27 per cent year-on-year).

Petra was alone among the miners we've listed in reporting a year-on-year drop in revenue, down 77 per cent to $23m. That was a direct result of it deferring the sale of almost all its South African goods during the quarter. Its entire revenue for the quarter came from for an 18.85-carat blue diamond recovered at Cullinan Mine, South Africa (that sold for $8.5m), and $14m for goods from its Williamson mine, in Tanzania.

I cautioned at the start, and I'll caution again - these numbers are just a snapshot. It was Mark Twain who popularized the phrase "lies, damned lies and statistics" over a century ago. I don't agree. In truth the statistics themselves are pretty robust. The problem is how we choose to interpret them.

Have a fabulous weekend.