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Botswana declined to exercise a preemptive right to raise its stake in De Beers, which allows mining giant Anglo American to complete its planned purchase of a share in the firm from the Oppenheimer family (CHL) for $5.1 billion.
Elena Levina, analyst of the diamond world, is one of the writers of Rough & Polished website. She publishes researches and monthly analysis of the diamond industry and the market’s trends. www.rubel-menasche.com wanted to know a little bit more about her.
Global diamond production rose 26 percent to $14.41 billion in 2011 as rough diamond prices soared during the year, Kimberley Process data showed. By volume, production fell 3 percent to 123.99 million carats. The average price of production rose 31 percent to $116.19 per carat.
There is no doubt that the diamond industry is somewhat stuck in the murky waters again, a development that has brought about sad memories of 2008, when gem prices dropped by about 60 percent due to the global economic downturn.
Predicting the diamond market can be tricky at times, particularly for those on the supply side of the pipeline. Miners, generally loath to scale down operations, have understandably been treading cautiously in 2012. The pledge made last week by De Beers to monitor production in line with sightholder demand, should therefore not be taken lightly.
Here are a few facts: Polished diamond sales are down, rough is expensive, financing is below needs or bares high interest, the European economic outlook is grim, generic marketing is nonexistent, the prevalent price list is out of whack, in China GDP is growing but the pace is slowing, in India the exchange rate is […]
Botswana is regarded as the world’s leading diamond producer by value and the second largest producer by volume after Russia. Of late the economy of the southern African nation had been under pressure given the somewhat poor performance of the diamond industry
Does the DTC move to Botswana, the launch of the government’s own sights and a burgeoning polishing industry ensure long-term economic stability for the country? Botswana, along with its diamond-dependent economy, finds itself on the brink. After years of planning and negotiations, Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone is about to assume the position of the […]
Diamond rich and politically stable, Botswana looks to the future. When the London sights move to Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, by the end of 2013, sightholders will find themselves close to the diamond mines that are at the heart of their business. Botswana is a unique African nation with dramatic and beautiful wildlife, […]
The complicated dance between De Beers sightholders and the London-based brokers who work with them is about to get considerably more complex with the imminent move of the sights to Gaborone. It is anticipated that the first full Gaborone sight will take place in January of 2014. Diamond brokers are a vital link in the […]
It may have taken a downturn to prove it, but Diamond Trading Company (DTC) sightholders are sensing that the game has changed. As a result, there was an underlying anger emanating from this week’s DTC sight as prices softened a mere 3 percent and De Beers supply remained unprofitable.
In March 1981, after a long run of inflationary diamond prices, Thomson McKinnon Asset Management Inc. launched the Diamond Investment Trust; one of several trusts it formed to invest in diamonds. In retrospect, diamond prices were past their peak and cooling, eventually leading to the collapse of the trust. At launch, shares in the Trust traded […]