Mining conglomerate Anglo-American informed investors in an update yesterday that it expected a 26% y-o-y drop in revenue from its diamond mining business in 2019. The fall was attributed by the Company to challenging market conditions which resulted in a combination of lower volumes, mix and price index.

In response, Anglo also announced that it planned to hike its advertising budget for the diamond sector so as to drive demand, but did not offer further details.

The Company further stated that it expected to see an approximately 1% lower level of output per year than previously anticipated during the coming period. Giving further details, it said guidance for 2019 was ~31 million carats, but that for 2020 it was reducing guidance from ~33-35 mn cts announced earlier to ~32-34 mn cts, while for 2021 the figure would now be set at ~34-36 mn cts as against the ~35-37 mn cts announced earlier. For 2022, the miner announced a guidance of ~33-35 mn cts.

Anglo also said that its earlier estimated cost guidance was being lowered from ~US$65 per ct earlier to ~US$ 63 per ct for 2019 and it expected to further drop to ~US$ 60 per ct in 2020, the same as the cost achieved in 2018.

Mark Cutifani, CEO said the Company was also focused on completing key projects on time and on budget and cited the example of Marine Namibia where it has planned capex investment of ~US$ 0.1 billion to recover high value diamonds from the ocean.