Backed by Strong Demand for Rough, Rockwell Reports Sharp Rise in Sale Prices

Rockwell's Saxendrift operation in South Africa

Rockwell sells rough diamonds in a number of ways to different buyers, including by tenders, direct sales of select goods to specialized manufacturers, sales to the South African State Diamond Trader and sales of special stones to the Steinmetz Diamond Group (SDG.)

The mid-November diamond sales offered goods mined since August and included 39 stones in the 10-20 carat range, 13 stones in the 20-30 carat range, seven stones in the 30-40 carat range, one stone in the 50 -60 carat range and three stones larger than 100 carats.

Rockwell has sold 63 of these high value large stones, which also includes three colored stones sold to SDG for beneficiation and marketing

A portion of the stones will be polished in Botswana while others will be sold as rough stones. The company expects to achieve additional income from the polishing by SDG.

Rockwell reported that it recovered three additional stones larger than 50 carats in November. They include a 60.8-carat rounded off-white stone from Saxendrift and a 52.4-carat light yellow octahedral stone of excellent clarity from Holpan.

The miner has noted that demand for rough stones in the 1 to 10 carat range remains strong, with the strongest buying focused on the 2 to 5 carat market segment.

Prices for 3 carat rough stones have been extremely strong since March. Goods larger than 10 carats have also shown a slight firming in price, with top quality white and colored stones showing excellent prices. Goods of less than 1 carat, including lower quality Indian goods characterized by a high proportion of inclusions and imperfections, also showed some firming in price.

President and CEO John Bristow said he remains cautiously optimistic about the diamond market. The price improvements and market resilience has led the company to decide to renew plans for the modernization and re-commissioning of the Wouterspan operation in 2010.