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Gemfields June Ruby Auction Reaches Record High
The Singapore sale of mixed quality rough rubies was 93 percent sold by weight and hit a revenue high of $71.8 million.
A shot of Gemfields’ Montepuez ruby mining site in Mozambique
London--If recent auction results were any indication, demand for Gemfields’ Mozambican rubies is strong.
The colored stone miner and marketer held its latest ruby auction from June 5 to 9 in Singapore, putting on offer untreated Mozambique rough rubies of high, medium and commercial grades.
The auction set two records for Gemfields--revenues reached an all-time high for any of the company’s sales at $71.8 million, while the average per-carat price was $122.
Of the 629,893 carats on offer, 588,656--or 93 percent by weight--were sold, which Gemfields said in a press release “provided a high level of comfort in respect of (its) understanding of the current market demand profile.”
Sean Gilbertson, CEO of Pallinghurst and Gemfields, added the “health of market demand for Mozambican rubies mined by MRM and marketed by Gemfields is amply demonstrated by these record-breaking auction results.”
Both of the last two ruby auctions for Gemfields offered mixed quality rough rubies. The November 2017 auction was 89 percent sold by weight and reached revenues of $55 million, while the June 2017 auction was 85 percent sold by weight and revenues were $54.8 million.
Last week’s event was Gemfields’ tenth auction of rough rubies from its Montepuez mining site, which has generated $407 million in total revenues since June 2014.
The news of the record ruby sale follows a May emerald auction that saw disappointing results for Gemfields as the Indian sector continued to struggle amid fallout from the Nirav Modi bank scandal.
In that auction, only 56 percent of the 310,000 carats on offer were sold after so many emerald customers have had trouble securing financing.
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