Petra chasing over loss!

H1 production gone up by

10% to 2,019,147 carats!

Recently Petra Diamonds announced its H1 FY 2019 interim result says, the sale of Petra’s interest in the Kimberley Ekapa Mining Joint Venture-KEM JV and Helam Mining, is being completed in December 2018. Accordingly the H1 result has not included KEM JV & Helam performance unless specified!

During the H1 production gone up 10% to 2,019,147 carats over the previous H1 FY 2018 had registered 1,843,956 carats production. Over all Carats sold increased 15% to 1,736,357 while H1 FY 2018 had sold 1,510,361 carats. Increased sale is a result of increased production.

Financial Revenue generated of US$207.1 million over the H1 FY 2018 of US$191.8 million & net loss adjusted after tax of US$4.5 million was a US$7.2 million profit in H1 FY 2018. Petra says, loss on discontinued operations relating to KEM JV and Helam of US$39.7 million (H1 FY 2018: US$53.9 million loss – KEM JV only).

However, should product mix and pricing remain at the levels achieved during H1, the Company expects its net debt position at 30 June 2019 to remain largely in line with the balances as at 31 December 2018, assuming BEE debt repayments are maintained according to the existing amortisation schedule.

Johan Dippenaar, CEO of Petra, commented: “Whilst we delivered solid production and continued to improve our safety performance in the first half, we recognise the impact the lower value of the product mix at Cullinan had on our financial results for the Period. During the second half, we will accelerate the installation of draw points to improve access across the full footprint of the C-Cut Phase 1 block cave. Our focus remains to continue to deliver operational- and capex efficiencies at all of our operations, in order to generate positive free cash flow and subsequent debt reduction.

As we have also communicated today, these are the last results that I will be reporting as CEO, and I am pleased that we have accomplished our operational targets for the Period. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Petra’s Board, management and staff for their tremendous support over the last fourteen years. I am very proud of the team’s efforts to grow the company and more recently to overcome a number of challenges to lay the foundations for Petra’s next phase of delivery.”