Petra Diamonds production up but revenue falls 10%

Independent mining firm Petra Diamonds has reported a fall in revenue despite an increase in production in its full year financial results, ending June 30. 

Revenue for the company was down 10% to $425m (£273.9m), which it put down to lower average diamond prices than in the same time last year.

Despite this, production for the company was up 2% to 3.2 million carats with production expected to rise even further in 2016. Petra said that it remains on track to meet its target of 5 million carats per annum by 2019.

Johan Dippenaar, CEO of Petra Diamonds, said: “Despite the challenging operating conditions being experienced by Petra in this transitionary period, we have recorded further growth in production to 3.2 million carats in FY 2015, which represents record production for the group.

“It is encouraging to see that measures to manage the grade profile at Cullinan have yielded successful results in the last quarter, and are expected to continue to assist until undiluted ore meaningfully contributes to our production profile from H2 FY 2016.”

Dippenaar commented that required contracts have been entered into for the construction of a new processing plant at Cullinan, adding that Petra’s various expansion programmes remain on track to meet the company’s long term target of 5 million carats by 2019.