Lower Grades Dent Rio Tinto Production

RAPAPORT… Rio Tinto’s rough-diamond production from its Diavik mine in Canada fell in the third quarter amid the recovery of lower-grade ore.

Output dropped 17% year on year to 834,000 carats for the three months ending September 30, the company said last week. The decline also reflected the processing of lower volumes of ore during the period. Output slipped 2% from the previous quarter.

For the first nine months of the year, the miner produced 2.7 million carats — a 5% decrease versus the same period of 2020. The company expects total diamond recovery for the year to come to between 3 million and 3.8 million carats.

This year is the first to exclude output from the miner’s Argyle site in Australia, which closed in November. Full production for 2020 was 14.7 million carats, of which 3.7 million carats were from Diavik, Rio Tinto noted.

Rio Tinto owns a 60% stake in Diavik, with Dominion Diamond Mines holding the remainder.

Image: The Diavik mine. (Rio Tinto)