US tariffs force diamond sales delays in further financial blow to Petra Diamonds

Petra Diamonds has postponed the sale of about 200,000 carats of diamonds produced from its Cullinan mine near Pretoria because of the “considerable diamond market uncertainty “caused by the US tariffs announcement.Despite this Petra has sold diamond production from its Finsch mine in South Africa and its Williamson mine in Tanzania in terms of its fifth sales tender for the current financial year to end-June.Petra reported that total revenue from diamond sales for the year-to-date – excluding Cullinan goods – amounted to $103m compared with $138m in the first five tenders of financial year 2024.The company also cited a “product mix issue” at Cullinan as another reason for holding back diamond sales from the mine. According to a Petra statement this was caused by a lower number of gem quality stones than expected, specifically in the plus 10.8 carat category.According to Petra “this issue also resulted in lower than anticipated revenues and average prices for the Cullinan Mine’s goods in tenders 3 and 4.  The Cullinan mine has a history of experiencing product mix variability. This is expected given the maturity of the C-Cut ore body and we expect the product mix at Cullinan Mine to normalise as the proportion of fresh ore from the CC1E project increases.“While we have not seen a marked improvement in the product mix at Cullinan Mine, in recent weeks Cullinan has produced some plus 10.8 carat high quality gem stones including an 81 carat D colour Type 11 stone which the company expects will provide some support for average prices in the next tender.”Petra is battling grim conditions in the global diamond markets which have forced two rounds of restructuring on the group’s mining operations as well as its finances to deal with an on-going debt crunch.CEO Richard Duffy resigned in mid- February “by mutual agreement and with immediate effect” and was replaced on a temporary basis by Vivek Gadodia and Juan Kemp who were appointed joint interim CEO’s.In today’s statement Petra said it had continued to reduce costs and optimise capital through the latest restructuring plan that started in December 2024 and had delivered on the 2025 financial cost and capex targets to date.Petra had also completed the Section 189 retrenchment process at its group and South African operations support functions.But the company was now unlikely to achieve the net free cash flow generation target set for the 2025 financial year because of the poorer product mix at Cullinan and the ongoing market uncertainty.Petra said this negative assessment “could change if product mix and market prices significantly improve over the next three months.”The company will provide an update on its operations and restructuring plan as well as the postponed Cullinan sales “once there is greater market certainty around the impact of the US tariffs no diamond markets.”The post US tariffs force diamond sales delays in further financial blow to Petra Diamonds appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com