Gemstone miners hit the headlines last month when Petra Diamonds (PDL) uncovered an “exceptional” 123-carat blue diamond at the Cullinan mine near Pretoria. Some are predicting that the Petra find could out-gross the previous record set for a rough diamond of $35.3m (£20.6m). That would be on top of the $25.6m the miner pocketed for the sale of another rarity recovered from Cullinan back in February.
Petra isn’t the only industry player in clover. Rough diamond realisations from major mining companies increased by 7 per cent in the first half of 2014 alone, according to industry price aggregator Rapaport. And the demand side seems healthy too: Petra’s good fortune was swiftly followed by news that jewellery sales at London auction house Christie’s had jumped by 11 per cent over the past 12 months to $456m.