Gem Diamonds Ltd, a leading producer of high value diamonds having mines in Lesotho and Botswana has ended the year on a strong note with high value diamonds boosting the average price per carat achieved in 2014 to US$ 2,540 percarat, a 24%  rise from the US$ 2,043 per carat achieved a year earlier. The company is now on track to declare its maiden dividend when announcing the complete results for the year, it said in a statement.

The Letseng mine in Lesotho, where Gem Diamonds owns a 70% stake (the rest is held by the government) yielded 13 rough diamonds that achieved a value of greater than US$ 1.0 million each during the fourth quarter of the year that ended on December 31, 2014.  This included a 299.3 carat yellow diamond. Overall the recovery from the mine in Q4 2014 was 25,525 carats as against 28,365 carats in Q3 2014.

The Ghagoo mine in Botswana will see its first sale of rough diamonds in Antwerp and Gaborone in the next few days. Till now, 10,167 carats have been recovered, including a 20 carat white diamond, a 17 carat white diamond, and a 3 carat orange diamond. Gem Diamonds reports that the development of Phase 1 of this project is progressing well.

In the coming period, implementation of the Plant 2 Phase 1 upgrade and the new Coarse Recovery Plant projects at Letseng remain on track for commissioning in Q1 and Q2 of 2015 respectively – both in terms of time and budget, it said.

Gem Diamonds’ CEO, Clifford Elphick described Q4 as “an encouraging end to a very positive year”.  He pointed out that “during the fourth quarter the diamond market saw a weakening of prices following a year of price growth (and) this trend may continue into the first quarter of 2015”. However, he added that “the long term outlook for the diamond market remains strong”.