Stornoway Hit by Challenging Diamond Market

RAPAPORT... Stornoway Diamond Corporation ended 2017 with lower than expected production and sales, as tough market conditions and operating glitches at the Renard mine marred its first year of operations.   The company recovered 1.64 million carats of diamonds in 2017, compared to 1.69 million initially planned for the year. It garnered sales of $149.5 million (CAD 186.2million) at an average price of $85 per carat, the company reported late last week."We continue to see a lower-price environment for ourdiamond sales, in part due to what has been a challenging rough-diamond marketfor a new producer, and in part due to the lower-than-expected quality and sizeattributes of our initial production," said MattManson, Stornoway president and CEO.Production was impacted by a high rate of diamonds that were broken up in the Renard processing facility, which the company only managed to correct later in the year. The mine also yielded more smaller diamonds than expected, the company explained. The Canadian miner plans production of 1.6 million carats for2018, to be valued at an average of $125 to $165 per carat.