SODIAM, Angola’s public diamond company, raised US$56.6M yesterday with the tender for special stones from the mines of Uari, Lulo, Catoca and Luele, it was announced.
According to a note issued by the company, the third rough diamond auction in Luanda, whose evaluation sessions took place between the 9th and 23rd of this month, at SODIAM’s premises.
In total, the volume of diamonds auctioned was 115,879.08 carats, the note adds.
In the auction, based on an estimated bid between US$27M and US$30M, more than 50 companies from the main diamond centers in the world participated.
The first diamond auction was held in February 2019, in light of the new diamond marketing policy, and in December of the same year, SODIAM E.P held the second event.
Also read: Angola Lucapa sells US$5M of Lulo diamonds
In 2020, the covid-19 pandemic prevented auctions from being held, and for this auction all precautionary and biosafety measures required by the competent authorities to control and combat the disease were taken.
“In the current auction format, for the act of purchasing diamonds, participating companies present their bids remotely, in a closed model, on the online electronic platform created for this purpose, a model that generates greater transparency in the process and allows obtaining a greater commercial value for the available stones”, the document explains.
Despite the restrictions of covid-19, the third diamond auction was confirmed as the largest so far, in terms of participation and value collected.
The note informs that, in 2020, SODIAM EP sold more than 7.7 million carats in crude, for a total value of 1.013 billion dollars, corresponding to an average price of 130.90 dollars, ranking Angola as the third world’s largest producer of rough diamonds in terms of value.
The productions marketed by SODIAM E.P come from 12 productions, kimberlite and alluvial, and cover the entire spectrum of qualities in terms of sizes, models, purity and colors.
