Petra Diamonds shares begin Main Market trading

Finance

Publishing Date: 21 Dec 2011 3:11pm GMT
Author: Mining Journal

Shares in Petra Diamonds Ltd began trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday following the company’s decision to migrate from the AIM exchange.

Since 2007, the company has transformed from a diamond explorer in Angola with small producing assets in South Africa, to a multi-mine producer, having purchased five kimberlite pipe assets from De Beers.

During that time, resources have grown from 9Mct to 300Mct, annual production has risen from 180,000ct to 1.1Mct, and annual revenue from US$17 million to US$220 million.

Petra’s chairman, Adonis Pouroulis said: “Our core objective is to continue to deliver substantial growth over the coming years, as we steadily increase annual production to over 5Mct by FY 2019.”

The company has also announced a record unit price on a recent rough stone. In early December the 4.8ct blue diamond from the Cullinan mine in South Africa, sold for US$300,000/ct for a total of US$1.45 million.

The company added: “Petra is also confident that it is one of the highest values per carat ever achieved on the sale of a rough diamond by any rough diamond producer."