Gemfields has realised $58.9 million in revenues from the sale of 343,952 carats of mixed quality rubies sold at an average price of $171.33 per carat.
The company last conducted its ruby auction in December 2019, which saw 927, 130 carats of rubies being sold for $71,5 million or at an average price of 77.12 per carat.
The latest auction, which took place online as opposed to the traditional venue in Singapore due to the COVID-19 related international travel restrictions, saw only 47% of the 726, 610 carats offered, being sold.
"We're truly delighted to be back in business after the [long] pause in both mining and sales...," said Gemfields' managing director of product and sales Adrian Banks.
He said the auction, made up of seven sequential mini-auctions, yielded the third-highest revenue figure of the fourteen auctions which its 75%-owned Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) has run since June 2014.
Operations at MRM were suspended in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and operations only resumed recently with mining expected to ramp back up to full-scale by the end of this month.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
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