Firestone Diamonds plc providing a quarterly update on operations at its Liqhobong Diamond Mine for the quarter ended 31 December 2018 (Q2 FY 2019), said that it had treated 884,252 tonnes of ore in the period, as against 1,012,323 tonnes treated in the previous quarter (Q1 FY 2019). The lower volume of ore treated was on account of “unscheduled repair work being undertaken on one of the scrubbers during November”, the Company explained.

However, Firestone noted that the 1.9 million total tonnes treated in the first six months of FY2019 is in line with annual guidance of between 3.6 million and 3.9 million tonnes treated for the year.

While 902,151 tonnes of waste was mined (Q1: 961,013 tonnes), Firestone plans to increase waste tonnes mined to meet guidance of between 4.3 million tonnes and 4.8 million tonnes for FY2019.

For Q2 FY 2019, Firestone reported a cost of US$ 12.00 per tonne treated – it stands at US$ 10.96 year-to-date – which, the Company said, was substantially lower than FY2019 guidance of US$ 15-16 per tonne treated.

In the period under discussion, Firestone sold a total of 191,735 carats as compared to the 194,206 carats sold in the prior quarter. Through the sales, the Company raised a revenue of US$ 13.9 million (Q1: US$ 13.5 million). The average value realised stood at US$ 72 per carat as against US$ 70 per carat for Q1 FY2019, which the Company stated “is below expectation mainly due to a deterioration in prices received for the smaller, lower value stones”.

Firestone also reported the recovery of a 46-carat white diamond in December.

With net cash on hand as at 31 December 2018 of US$ 26.2 million (Q1: US$ 25.7 million), the Company said: “Despite the continued subdued conditions at the lower value end of the market, the mine continued to generate positive cash flows after finance costs.”

Paul Bosma, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "We had a reasonable second quarter, barring a scrubber failure sustained in November, ending the financial half year with all our production parameters on track to meet guidance by year end. The demand for the smaller, lower value stones deteriorated further during the quarter albeit that it stabilised at the December sale and remained at the same level for the January sale. Pleasingly the demand for larger, better quality stones remains strong as was evidenced by the pricing received for the 46 carat white stone that was sold during the first sale of 2019.”