Angola to Reduce Supply of Small Diamonds
Angola will limit output of small rough in the coming months, aiming to avoid flooding the market, state-owned diamond miner Endiama has said.
Angola will limit output of small rough in the coming months, aiming to avoid flooding the market, state-owned diamond miner Endiama has said. Angola is the world’s fastest-growing diamond-producing nation, with rough exports increasing 70% to 17.7 million carats in 2025. However, many of those goods are in the smaller categories that have struggled in the past two years, leading to charges the African nation has contributed to a glut in polished under 1 carat.
The next sales of rough from Catoca and Luele, Angola’s two largest mines, will see a “substantial reduction” in availability of small goods, Elton Escrivão, Endiama’s commercial director, told Rapaport News Thursday at the Luxury show in Las Vegas. “For the next three months, we are going to substantially reduce the volume of diamonds in the small sizes that we are putting in the market, especially when it comes to Catoca and Luele,” Escrivão said.
The country aims to “protect the value of our production and…the market,” he added. Escrivão announced the move at a Natural Diamond Council (NDC) event about Angola’s mining sector on the sidelines of the show. “If necessary, we are going to extend this suspension to protect the market,” he told the audience.
