De Beers output surges 38% as it draws down stockpile to fund sale

De Beers lifted rough diamond production by 38% to 7.657 million carats in the third quarter of 2025, up from 5.566 million carats a year earlier, even as the group sold diamonds at discounted margins to work down an inventory that had swollen past an estimated $2 billion in value.

The scale of the destocking effort was stark: two sight sales during the quarter generated 5.7 million carats worth $700 million, compared with a single sight of just 2.1 million carats worth $213 million in the same period a year before. Selling more stock at lower average prices reduced the average realised price by 3% to $155 per carat, while the broader rough diamond price index fell 14% year-on-year.

Jwaneng carries the load

Botswana drove much of the production increase, with output boosted primarily by the Jwaneng mine, which had operated for a full quarter compared with a month of maintenance downtime in the same period a year earlier. Anglo American said it was "making good progress" on what it described as a "structured sale process" for De Beers, though there remained a wide gap between the group's own valuation of the business at around $5 billion and market consensus estimates closer to $2.5 billion.

Tariffs add to the noise

US tariffs on Indian-cut diamonds had initially unsettled sentiment during the quarter, since India polishes the vast majority of the world's rough stones and any levy on its exports feeds straight back into demand for African rough. Exemptions granted to certain trading partners later in the quarter eased some of that pressure, but the episode underlined how exposed African diamond producers are to trade policy decisions made far from their mines.

Rival bids complicate the sale

Both Botswana, which holds a 15% stake in De Beers, and Angola had by this point submitted their own offers or expressions of interest in the business, complicating Anglo's efforts to run a clean sale process. The combination of a shrinking market, a contested sale and a still-swollen stockpile meant De Beers entered the final quarter of 2025 with plenty still to resolve before any deal could be concluded.

Sources

• Miningmx: De Beers cuts into stockpile as sale enters critical stage, 28 Oct 2025

Photo: Satellite view of Botswana's diamond mining region, home to De Beers's Debswana joint venture. NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.