Diamond miner Petra Diamonds continued to perform well during the three months to September 30, with record carat production at the Cullinan mine in South Africa during August and September, an “excellent achievement” given the Covid-19 mitigation measures, which now form part of the group’s standard working conditions, says CEO Richard Duffy.

Petra notes that its Project 2022 continued through the lockdown period, despite the resultant reduction in manning levels, although the emphasis shifted from throughput initiatives to cost optimisation.

The implementation of the throughput improvement initiatives has resulted in more stable operations and a thorough understanding of the bottlenecks in the company’s mining and recovery processes, it says.