Mark Cutifani, CEO of Anglo American, spoke at the Prospectors and Developers association of Canada convention earlier this week, noting that “productivity remains [the] number one operational challenge for the [diamond] industry as it has dropped by 30% over the last decade”, according to a report in Rough & Polished.
Cutifani added that Anglo American has increased its productivity by 41% since 2012, delivering 8% more product “from a third fewer assets”. Additionally, the number of environmental incidents has decreased by 87%. Anglo American has also reduced its net debt by 34% in a year, Cutifani noted.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Anglo American’s miner unit De Beers increased its total revenue by 30% to $6.1 billion in 2016. Rough diamond sales increased by 37% to $5.6 billion.
The miner reported a 50% increase in consolidated sales volumes to 30 million carats – compared with 19.9 million carats in 2015. However, price per carat decreased from $207 in 2015 to $187 in 2016, “reflecting the 13% lower average rough price index, offset to some extent by an improved sales mix”, according to the report. In addition, rough diamond production decreased by 5% to 27.3 million carats from 28.7 million carats in 2015.
