Is a “Diamond Production Crisis” in the Cards?

Mining Weekly published an article on De Beers’ recent Diamond Insight Report 2014. It notes that while the balance between diamond supply and demand has only recently been restored, it may yet be disrupted again by the end of the decade.

As quoted in the market news:

[W]hile recovery is expected to continue for the next four years, which will facilitate a more balanced market, there is growing consensus among analysts and industry stakeholders that a new spectre – that of waning production – now looms on the horizon and threatens to disrupt that recently restored balance by the close of the decade.

The Diamond Insight Report reveals that global rough diamond production has already begun to decline from a peak of 175-million carats in 2005 to 145-million carats in 2013. The report also states that the forecast reduction in supply from existing sources is not likely to be matched by new production coming on stream in the years ahead; diamond supply is expected to plateau in the second half of the decade before it is expected to decline from 2020.

Click here to read the full Mining Weekly report.