Petra Diamonds has reported that its rough diamond production in Q1 FY2019 (July 1 to September 30, 2018) rose 21% year-on-year to 1,068,140 carats “mainly driven by a 25% increase in ROM production”.
The revenue for the same period went up 22% to $80.2 million year-on-year. However, diamond prices were down about 5% in comparison to FY 2018, “due to the usual seasonal weakness, but partially offset by the improvement in product mix”.
Johan Dippenaar, CEO of Petra Diamonds, commented: “The first quarter of FY 2019 shows solid operational delivery, underpinned by strong safety performance, with the ramp up of our expansion programmes leading to a healthy increase in ROM carat production, thereby supporting our expectation of free cash flow generation and subsequent debt reduction”.