20th Feb 2024 10:19
(Alliance News) - Petra Diamonds Ltd on Tuesday said it swung to a loss in the first half of its financial year due to higher costs and saw its revenue decline due to a fall in diamond sales.
Shares in Petra Diamonds fell 13% to 37.50 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.
The Bermuda-based diamond mining group focused on southern Africa said revenue dropped by 10% to USD187.8 million in the first half of the year ending June 30, from USD208.5 million the year before.
This was partly driven by a 9.3% decrease in rough diamond sales to USD187.8 million from USD207.1 million a year prior.
Petra Diamonds swung to a pretax loss of USD15.9 million from a USD2.8 million profit in the first half of financial 2023, as mining and processing costs stretched to USD186.5 million from USD166.4 million.
Looking ahead, the company said it expects full-year production to be between 2.8 and 2.9 million carats, which is a reduction from its previous guidance of 2.9 to 3.2 million carats.
Chief Executive Officer Richard Duffy said: "Petra has reacted swiftly to diamond market uncertainty, taking steps to improve resilience through ongoing cost and capital optimisation. Whilst we believe that prices have now bottomed, we expect pricing to recover more slowly than initially thought. We continue to see a supportive market in the medium to longer-term."
By Sabrina Penty, Alliance News reporter
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