Diamcor Mining’s sales increased for the full fiscal year as the company mined a higher proportion of large diamonds from its Krone-Endora at Venetia project in South Africa.

Revenue rose 37% to $6.3 million for the 12 months that ended March 31, the company said last week. The greater availability of special-size stones — those above 10.8 carats — outweighed a 1.6% drop in sales volume to 18,476 carats. Meanwhile, the average price surged 40% to 341 per carat.

The company reduced its net loss for the year to $762,308, compared to $2.4 million a year ago. At the same time, it decreased its debt 6% to $6.1 million, versus $6.5 million on March 31, 2022. However, the miner is still trying to offset the negative effects of load-shedding — scheduled power cuts — by the country’s supplier, Eskom, which have adversely affected production. That includes refinements to the backup generator power systems, reducing power usage at the processing plants and streamlining machinery operations, which it hopes will allow it to sustain ore-processing volumes.

“We are pleased [with] these improved results…over the previous year given the significant challenges with consistent power supply we had to endure during the latter half of the fiscal year,” said Diamcor CEO Dean Taylor. “We now look to shift our focus to advancing the drilling and bulk sampling efforts over the greater areas of the project to further support increased processing volumes and operational consistency.”

Main image: Rough diamonds. (Diamcor Mining)