When De Beers Chief Executive Officer, Al Cook addressed sight-holders during the eighth sight week (Sep18-Oct 3rd 2023) in Gaborone, he made them an exceptional offer: the option to walk away from the sale. Al Cook also cancelled the remainder of De Beers’ online auctions for the year.
The moment marked De Beer’s decision to pull back from the sale of Debswana’s produce in earnest. De Beers markets Debswana rough diamonds in a series of tightly scripted sales, where sight-holders are normally expected to take all their contracted allocations at a price set by De Beers, or face potential penalties in the future.
A month after Al Cook’s atypical decision, during cycle 9, De Beers rough diamond sales crashed to just $80m as demand virtually evaporated – and Debswana has the worst of it. That was the lowest sales figure since De Beers started reporting Sight totals in 2016, down 60 per cent on cycle 8 and down 82 per cent on cycle 9 in 2022.
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