Petra Diamonds given government permission to resume exports from Tanzania
Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI)
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15:04 19/04/24
Petra Diamonds has received authorisation from the government of Tanzania to resume diamond exports and sales from its Williamson mine, although one parcel of gems still remains blocked for export.
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Announcing the news late on Wednesday, Petra said the exact timing and process for the next diamond parcel export to its marketing office in Antwerp and subsequent sale would be decided between the company and the government.
A parcel of 71,654.45 carats from its 75%-owned Williamson mine that Petra said earlier in September was being blocked for export, still remains locked down by the government with no resolution yet reached.
The company said it will provide an update on this "as soon as practicable", having originally said it would be “in a position to address any concerns” once it had received a copy of the report containing the findings of a parliamentary investigation.
Petra shares rose almost 7% to 76.1p in early trading on Thursday.
Analyst Yuen Low at Shore Capital said: "In a blatant case of victim blaming, the government attempted to justify its actions by claiming that the parcel actually contained nearly 30kg worth 65bn shillings, rather than the 14kg worth 33bn shillings that was registered.
Petra pointed out at the time that the government has "complete oversight" of diamonds produced at the mine, which are “physically controlled by a number of different government representatives in conjunction with Petra" from point of recovery to point of sale, with the state valuation agency also responsible for the provisional valuation of parcels prior to export.
Low said that the lack of mention of the report into the parcel being "held hostage", he presumed Petra is still waiting to see it.
"As we have previously noted, if the developments at Acacia Mining can be taken as a precedent, Petra could be waiting a very long time – as far as we are aware, Acacia is still waiting for reports that, in our view, should have in the interests of transparency been made available to it (and the public at large) in May 2017.
"We suspect that release of the Acacia and Petra reports would likely lead to a significant loss of face for President Magufuli, and as we do not believe he is the sort of person to tolerate such a thing, we would not be surprised if they never saw the light of day."