Rockwell Finds Fewer Carats for 2nd Straight Quarter

Diamond company Rockwell again produced fewer carats of rough diamonds in the three months of March, April and May than it did in the same three month period a year earlier, Business Day Live reports. The firm announced that it unearthed 4,824 carats during its fiscal first quarter of 2013, which was 33% less than 2012 Q1. The decrease follows a similar deterioration in the final quarter of the 2012 fiscal year, when Rockwell mined 3,854 carats, a 5% decrease.

Rockwell said that its sale of the Klipdam mine at the end of March and the mothballing of the Tirisano mine in the North West province of South Africa back in December accounted for this drop in carats. Production at Rockwell's Saxendrift Hill Complex has begun in earnest, and its activities have been subsidizing the Tirisano mine. But Rockwell chief executive officer James Campbell says that this practice will soon be phased out, according to Business Day Live.

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