I have been following this since the NR on record diamond recovery - some informative posts here. TUVM. VAA appears very under valued even with the many o/s. I have been watching the trading as well. Sales, increasing resources, Brazil location, share buy-back, go figure. Article below is from this mornings Resource Investor with bit of an overview on diamonds.
JOHANNESBURG (Business Day) --Diamond producer and explorer Petra Diamonds [AIM:PDL], which has been expanding its domestic operations in the past two years by buying De Beers mines, turned around with interim earnings of 2.44 U.S. cents per share in the six months to December 31 from a loss of 6.33 cents the year before.
It said yesterday the Competition Commission had approved its acquisition of the Cullinan mine from De Beers. Only transfer of the mining licence, environmental rehabilitation liability and other regulatory approvals remained.
Last year, Petra bought the Kimberley underground operations from De Beers. Once these two acquisitions are complete, Petra will have six producing diamond mines in South Africa. It is targeting production of a million carats of diamonds a year by 2010 from 180,000 carats in the year to June last year.
Petra chairman Adonis Pouroulis said it was on track to meet production targets this year despite power outages and a cut in power to 90% of normal usage, as the group had back-up generators.
Revenue quadrupled to $32.2 million from $8.3 million as the group started to sell diamonds from Koffiefontein, formerly a De Beers mine, last July and realised higher prices from its fissure mines in South Africa: Helam, Star and Sedibeng. It produced 17% more diamonds at 101,123 carats.
Petra said exploration in Angola, Botswana and Sierra Leone had yielded encouraging results at Alto Cuilo, while trial mining at Kono, in Sierra Leone, had so far produced 760 carats of diamonds.
Pouroulis said despite concern about the effect on diamond sales of a U.S. economic slowdown, demand was rising rapidly in China, India and the Middle East. Petra had recorded price increases at its first tenders this year.
Shares in Petra, quoted on London's Alternative Investment Market, gained 1.5 pence to 127 pence after results were released.