Petra Diamonds Limited reported that its Q1 revenue increased 33% to $82 million owing to the release of inventory carried over from Q4 FY 2020 and an increase in diamond prices following the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Diamond prices increased around 21% on a like-for-like basis at the September 2020 tender in comparison to the prices obtained following the Covid-19 outbreak. Despite a further 2% increase at the October 2020 tender, prices are still down around 10% in comparison to pre-Covid-19 levels, Petra revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Petra reported a 10% drop in Q1 production to 974,346 carats, mainly due to the Williamson mine remaining on care and maintenance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company continued to suspend its production guidance for FY 2021 due to ongoing uncertainty around the impact of Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The diamond market has shown some modest improvement in FY 2021 but there is still uncertainty around further disruption due to Covid-19 related restrictions, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company is continuing its flexible approach in planning its upcoming tenders in light of the Covid-19 challenges. Risks to tender timing remain as a result of possible restrictions that may be re-imposed following a second wave of Covid-19 infections currently being experienced in a number of countries, including Belgium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard Duffy, Chief Executive of Petra Diamonds, commented: \u201cThe Company continued to perform well during the Period, with record carat production at Cullinan during August and September, an excellent achievement given the Covid-19 mitigation measures, which now form part of our standard working conditions. However, Group production was down, mainly due to the Williamson mine remaining on care and maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFinally, last week\u2019s announcement with regards to reaching agreement in principle with our ad hoc group of bondholders and South African lender group around a financial restructuring will provide us with a considerably more manageable level of debt going forward and marks a significant milestone in putting the Company on a viable footing going forward.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caption: The Finsch mine in South Africa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Petra Diamonds Limited reported that its Q1 revenue increased 33% to $82 million owing to the release of inventory carried over from Q4 FY 2020 and an increase in diamond prices following the pandemic. Diamond prices increased around 21% on a like-for-like basis at the September 2020 tender in comparison to the prices obtained following…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,96,100],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-5520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulletin","category-diamonds","category-in-focus"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n