Stornoway Diamond Corporation (TSX-SWY) just released information about the first sale of the Renard kimberlite mine – press release.

In total, 38,913 carats were sold at an average price of US$195 per carat, for proceeds of US$7.6 million (C$10.2 million).

Matt Manson, President and CEO of Stornoway, commented “The diamonds sold in this first sale represent a portion of our production recovered during the initial commissioning and ramp-up of the Renard project during August and September. We saw strong interest in our product assortment, with 153 diamantaires attending the tender. Pricing met or was close to our expectations on most items. Recent events in India surrounding demonetization has impacted pricing and demand for certain smaller and lower quality items and, as a result, a quantity of these were withdrawn from the sale. These will be sold at a later date. Because of this, and because of a higher than expected proportion of small diamonds recovered during the ramp-up period, the result of this first sale cannot be taken as representative of the longer term pricing profile of the project. This was the first introduction of Québec diamonds to the market and a price discovery exercise. We look forward to growing our sales profile over the next few months. The project’s production ramp-up continues to exceed our expectations, and three tender sales have been scheduled for the first quarter of 2017.”