Richard Duffy
CEO: Petra Diamonds
We continue to expect prices to show some improvement in calendar year 2025 with market fundamentals being supportive’
LOOKING at Richard Duffy’s trials at Petra Diamonds since he took the reins in 2019, you could be forgiven for thinking his mantra must be “give me a break”. When he joined Petra it was struggling with a poor market. Duffy effectively saved the company from liquidation just as the market revived in what he felt was positive structural change. But it was not to be as the market was again plunged into distress. This time around, Duffy has been quicker to act. He offloaded Koffiefontein, a loss making mine. This removed closure-related costs of $15m-$18m from Petra’s stressed balance sheet.
More importantly, Duffy unveiled a new $100m capital programme. Aimed at instilling balance sheet resilience, the programme “smoothed out” five-year mine expansions and set the groundwork for an expected $180m in cash flow over the period even at conservative diamond prices. He also unveiled $30m in annual cost cuts. Looming large in Duffy’s thinking is some $273m in loan notes due to mature in March 2026. But the punches keep coming. Following a disappointing third tender, Petra announced in December another round of cost cutting at its South African mines, and deferred a refinancing plan to later this year. Despite this, Duffy remains upbeat on market prospects amid faint whispers of an improvement.
That would be good news indeed for Petra, which, in its Finsch and Cullinan mines, possesses rich resources. The aim is to have Cullinan operate to 2048 via the so-called D-Cut project. This requires a new production shaft down to 1,000m – still shallow, at least “as a former gold miner”, quips Duffy. Mining at Finsch is planned until 2040.
LIFE OF RICHARD
A mining engineer by training, Duffy has spent most of his career in the Anglo American fold, eventually becoming CFO at AngloGold Ashanti. His time at Petra has been a true baptism of fire because just about everything that could go wrong with a mining company has gone wrong on his watch. Perhaps setbacks could be blamed on him as he called the market wrongly. But he deserves plaudits for the resilience in his response.
