DE Beers, Anglo American’s 85%-owned diamond producer, sold an estimated $475m in diamonds in its eighth sight or ‘cycle’ of the year, a year-on-year increase of $99m. Sales reflected “steady overall demand”, said Bruce Cleaver, CEO of De Beers Group.
Sales in the eighth sight of 2017 totalled $376m. The sales number for the previous – seventh – sight of this year was $503m, however. Cleaver said sales of lower value categories had been impacted.
“While the Rupee-Dollar exchange rate has impacted demand for lower value categories, we continue to see steady overall demand for De Beers Group rough diamonds, reflecting ongoing consumer demand for diamond jewellery in the US,” said Cleaver.
De Beers sold 17.8 million carats in the first half of the financial year ended June 30 which compared to sales of 18.4 million carats in the previous period.
Underlying EBITDA decreased by 9% to $712m (H1 2017: $786m), a decline De Beers said was owing to unit cost increases “… driven by the impact of unfavourable exchange rate movements and a higher proportion of waste mining costs having been expensed rather than capitalised, mitigated by higher production. EBITDA was also impacted by the lower trading margins experienced in the period”.
