Dominion Diamond Sales -21% in 2015
February 24, 16
(IDEX Online News) – Dominion Diamond Corporation has announced its 2016 fiscal year results, which showed that the value of full-year diamond sales dropped to $720.6 million compared to $915.7 million in FY 2015.
The company recorded fourth quarter 2016 sales of $178.1 million; $111.6 million from the 100-percent owned Ekati mine and $66.5 million from the 40-percent owned Diavik mine. This represented a 26-percent decrease from the $240.6 million in the fourth quarter during the prior year.
Dominion sold 2,337,000 carats of Ekati rough diamonds and 1,740,000 carats of Diavik rough during the 12-month period ended January 31, 2016. The company said that it plans to produce 5.5 million carats from the processing of 3.9 million tons of ore at Ekati, and announced that production at Ekati during the fourth quarter of 2015 increased by 42 percent.
According to Dominion, US diamond retail sales were more positive in the fourth quarter and Chinese consumer demand remained fairly stable. It said that it had lowered prices in line with the market at its January sale by 5 percent.
The company held three rough diamond sales during the fourth quarter and plans to hold to further rough diamond sales in the first fiscal quarter of 2017.