From Argyle Mine Closure to a New Beginning
This article originally appeared in Australian Mining December 2020. You can view the original article here, pages 22-23.
No mine in the world has produced rare pink diamonds that can compete with the vibrancy and colour depth of those unearthed at Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine in Western Australia.
The pink diamonds found in the mines of India, Brazil and Russia also don’t compete with the character of Argyle’s famous gems.
The abundance of Argyle’s pink diamonds fit into just a small bucket in any given year, with Australian Diamond Portfolio executive director Anna Cisecki saying they represent only one of every 10,000 gem-quality diamonds produced at the mine.
Further, they represent less than 1 per cent of the world’s supply of diamonds, putting them in a much-elevated position to yellow diamonds that comprise around 60 per cent of the fancy-colour diamond market.
This scarcity has given pink diamonds inflation protecting qualities and steadily increased their prices by 11 per cent in the past 15 years, outperforming the Australian Securities Exchange, which returned 7.9 per cent.