Petra Diamonds announced that it has reached a new three year salary agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in South Africa. Miners at the Finsch, Koffiefontein and Kimberley Ekapa Mining JV operation operations are now back at work. Labor disputes were announced on September 26, and resolved on September 29.
According to the agreement, there will be annual increases “in the region of 9 to 10% for year one and 8.5% for years two and three”. Petra added that the new agreement does not have a “material impact to Petra’s cost guidance for FY 2018”. Petra also said it does not expect a material impact on Group production guidance of 4.8 to 5.0 million carats for FY 2018.
On September 27, Petra announced that it has resolved yet another issue: The miner received authorization from the Tanzanian government to resume diamond exports and sales from the Williamson mine in Tanzania. Tanzanian officials at Dar es Salaam airport confiscated a Petra consignment of 71,645-carat of diamonds on August 31. The diamonds were sourced from the Williamson mine, of which Petra owns 75%, and the government the remaining 25%. The diamonds were being exported to Antwerp, but Tanzanian officials claim they had been undervalued. Petra, on its end, stated that it was not responsible for the provisional evaluation of the stones.
