Charlotte Mathews
25 January 2008
Johannesburg — DIAMOND miner and explorer Petra Diamonds, which bought three diamond operations from De Beers in the past year, has almost quadrupled revenue in the six months to last month.
Revenue soared to $31,6m from $8,2m in the same period in 2006, Petra said in a trading update yesterday.
Petra Diamonds is listed on London's AIM, but all its producing mines are in SA. In the past six months revenue was generated mainly from Koffiefontein, which it took over from De Beers in July, and from its Sedibeng, Helam and Star diamond mines.
The purchase of Kimberley underground operations and the Cullinan Diamond Mine from De Beers is still being finalised.
These transactions are expected to lift Petra's diamond output from its South African operations to 250 000 carats in this financial year from 180000 carats last year, rising to 400000 carats by next financial year.
Petra is also exploring for diamonds in Angola and Botswana and doing trial mining at Kono in Sierra Leone, where it has a 51% interest in a property, with Mano River Resources holding 49%.
Chairman Adonis Pouroulis said the strategy was to acquire operating, long-life diamond mines to balance the exploration portfolio. Petra produced 101213 carats of diamonds in the past six months from 86396 carats a year ago. It realised an average price of $408/carat from the Koffiefontein diamonds, as against $182/carat at the other three mines.
Petra has modified the Koffiefontein recovery plant, improving the recovered grade to 8,2 carats per hundred tons from an estimate of 7,3 carats used in its original business plan.
Two exceptional gems found recently were sold for more than $1m each -- a 74,7-carat diamond from Koffiefontein and a 99,43-carat find from Sedibeng.
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