De Beers said it will fail to meet demand from its sightholders for the next six months due to weak diamond output.
The company’s production fell 13 percent to 13.449 million carats in the first half of the year.
De Beers had been focused on waste stripping and maintenance since the fourth quarter of 2011 when the market started to soften.
“We will have shortfalls for the rest of the intention to offer (ITO) period and the next Diamond Trading Company (DTC) sight will again be small,” Group chief executive Philippe Mellier was quoted by Rapaport as saying at the Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Show.
“Our production forecasts are still intact but our supply depends more on the type of goods that we can present, which may not match sightholder requests.”
DTC chief executive Varda Shine also said that the rough market had improved in the past few weeks as there were shortfalls of polished diamonds.
Sightholders rejected DTC goods at the June and July sights due to high prices despite the drop in demand.
However, DTC was forced to reduce its prices by about 10 percent at the August sight.
Meanwhile, Shine said that Chinese consumers had started to diversify their consumption of diamonds to lower qualities with VS-SI clarity goods becoming popular.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
