Commercial Operations at Gahcho Kue Highlights Canada as Global Producer – by Albert Robinson (Idexonline.com – June 29, 2017)

http://www.idexonline.com/

Mountain Province Diamonds’ report this week of the sale of 222,000 carats of rough stones for $21.1 million at $95 per carat at its fifth diamond sale of goods from Gahcho KuĂ© has served to put the spotlight on the country’s major role as a diamond producer.

The manner in which Mountain Province secures certain diamonds for sale in competition with its partner, De Beers Canada, which owns 51 percent of the operation, is also of interest. The firms bid for the diamonds they are particularly interested in selling.

Mountain Province’s sales figures were increased due to the inclusion of a selection of the fancies and specials won by the company otherwise scheduled for inclusion in the sixth sale, which will occur in the second half of July. Excluding these high value diamonds, the average value realized per carat was $75.
The fifth sale represented the company’s strongest sale performance to date, the mining company said. “The financial result was matched by several strong performance measures, including the number of buyers attending, the number of attendees placing bids and the average number of bids per lot.” Reid Mackie, Vice President Diamond Marketing, said: “The June tender sale was our best attended to date and produced a record number of bids.

Repeat customers won 75 percent of lots, indicating that the rough market’s understanding of our diamonds’ performance at manufacturing is positive and well on track.” The company declared the commencement of commercial production on March 1.

As far as Canada is concerned, it has taken the country little more than 15 years to become one of the world’s main diamond producers. The main diamond-producing countries, notably South Africa, Russia and Botswana, have been in the game for much longer.

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