De Beers to hold auctions for polished diamonds

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – De Beers’ Auction Sales business will pilot the sale of its own polished diamonds using auctions for the first time, it said on Thursday.

The sale will comprise a range of polished diamonds manufactured directly from De Beers’ rough diamonds.

The polished diamonds are available following contract manufacturing of De Beers Auction Sales’ rough diamond products to assess what range of polished diamonds they would produce.

The polished diamonds will be accompanied by both International Institute of Diamond Grading and Research and Gemological Institute of America grading reports.

The pilot auction will give De Beers’ Auction Sales business the opportunity to assess customer demand for buying polished diamonds through this channel.

“We have a limited amount of a range of polished diamonds, so it makes commercial sense for us to trial this auction on our existing platform.

“We are interested in testing the level of demand from polished buyers for diamonds that have a clear and attractive source of origin, and that offer the assurance of product integrity that dual certification provides,” Auction Sales executive VP Neil Ventura noted.

Meanwhile, a successful auction would also generate an additional polished price reference in dollars per carat. “In addition, this will complement our existing rough auctions and enable buyers to fill supply and inventory gaps if they were unable to secure supply at our spot and forward auctions for rough diamonds,” he said.

De Beers occasionally uses a third-party contractor to cut and polish some of its rough diamonds to better understand to what extent they are delivering customers’ polished outcome requirements.

All registered buyers of De Beers Auction Sales will be eligible to bid in the auction that will take place on June 29.