(paulzimnisky.com) - Through mid-December 2017, rough diamond prices are up 2.7%* year-to-date, while polished prices are down 3.5%**. However, despite shrinking manufacturer margins, the midstream segment of the industry still bought $5.3B worth of diamonds from De Beers this year, including $450M at the final sight which was 7% over the comparable sight last year and 81% over 2015. De Beers’ full-year sales were -5% relative to last year and +53% over 2015. Russian-major, ALROSA (MICEX: ALRS), is on pace to sell $4.4B of diamonds in 2017, which would be in line with 2016 and 27% over 2015. 2017 has been a year of excess inventory shifting from the upstream segment of the diamond industry to the mid-stream segment. For instance, industry leaders De Beers and ALROSA have both see their inventories decrease by an estimated 1.6M and 2.3M carats, respectively, through Q3 2017, this despite both producers also increasing production this year. World-wide natural diamond production is estimated to rise to approximately 148M carats in 2017 which would be a 7% increase in volume over last year. The increase mostly due to the commencement of production at three new mines, the ramping-up of production at previously curtailed operations and expansion projects at legacy mines.
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