Tshepo Molusi: South Africa establishes dedicated diamond retail shop in China

T3 Diamonds founder Tshepo Molusi told Rough & Polished’s Mathew Nyaungwa at the inaugural South Africa Diamond Show in Cape Town that the shop opened an opportunity for diamond manufacturers under the incubation to export their products to China. He...

17 february 2025

Nosiphiwo Mzamo: South Africa’s State Diamond Trader to buy diamonds from other African countries

South Africa’s State Diamond Trader (SDT) is set to buy diamonds from other African countries starting with Botswana. SDT’s chief executive Nosiphiwo Mzamo told Rough & Polished’s Mathew Nyaungwa at the country’s inaugural diamond show, which...

10 february 2025

Edahn Golan: Halo effect from lab-grown diamonds driving high demand for large, 2-carat natural stones in the U.S.

Edahn Golan, owner of the eponymous Edahn Golan Diamond Research and Data, told Rough & Polished's Mathew Nyaungwa in an exclusive interview that their research found a halo effect from lab-grown diamonds. He said the trend among lab-grown diamond...

27 january 2025

Paul Zimnisky: We will see a modest recovery in natural diamond demand and prices in 2025

According to Paul Zimnisky, an independent diamond and jewellery analyst and consultant based in the New York metro area, the natural diamond industry will see a modest recovery in demand and prices this year. Zimnisky said a moderate recovery would...

13 january 2025

African Diamond Council makes traceability its top priority, wants KP to embrace Authentia.io

The African Diamond Council (ADC) has made traceability its foremost priority and has been contributing to a traceability solution called Authentia.io for the last three and a half years, which is now ready to globally satisfy the traceability...

16 december 2024

Chile’s Codelco to borrow $1.5 billion to fund copper production

22 january 2025

Santiago-headquartered Codelco, world’s largest copper producer, is tapping the bond market to borrow about $1.5 billion to fund its mine investments.

Bloomberg reports that Chile’s state-owned miner has embarked on an unprecedented spending program to overhaul its aging operations in Chile after decades of underinvestment. Its CAPEX is seen at $6 billion in 2025 as the company looks to recover from the lowest production levels in around 25 years.

Codelco is offering two benchmark-size tranches of about $750-million each maturing 10 and 30 years, respectively. Such large investors as Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Banco Santander have expressed interest in the transaction.

In 2024, Codelco’s copper production amounted to 1.328 million metric tons, slightly up from 1.325 million tons produced in 2023.

Its sales in December were up 10% from November and 13% compared with the same month a year earlier, at $4.66 billion.

Theodor Lisovoy, Managing Editor, Rough&Polished