Competitive Argyle Pink Diamond Tender

The 2007 Rio Tinto Diamonds Argyle Pink Diamond Tender has concluded with great success. Some of the rarest and most beautiful diamonds in the world were for sale and examined by a select group of invited buyers in Perth (September 11-14), Hong Kong (September 18-28) and New York (October 1-12). About 100 prospective buyers were invited to examine the diamonds in secret locations, and then submitted bids for one or more of the 65 specially selected pink diamonds.

The rules of the tender prohibit announcement of the 17 successful bidders, the winning bids, or even the sales total for the tender. The special Rio Tinto tender pink diamonds have been know to get prices of as much as $400,000 per carat, forty times that of white diamonds. Recent projections that pink diamonds from the Argyle mine are expected to run out by 2018 have increased the public and industry’s awareness of their rarity and perceived value.

This year’s tender was exceptional due to the range of vivid and deep colors with deep pinks, purplish reds, and a rare gray-violet colored diamond.

Rio Tinto Diamonds Argyle mine started production in 1985 and the open pit mine operates 24 hours a day, 265 days a year. The open pit’s normal life ends in 2008 but Rio Tinto has extended its life to 2018 with low-grade production expansion in the pit and new underground operations. Historically, 60 to 80 million tons of material are extracted from the open pit operations, resulting in about 9 million tons of diamond-bearing ore and between 25 and 30 million carats of diamonds. Moving beyond 2008, production is projected fall to about half of current operations.

Only about 5% Argyle’s production is gem quality diamonds and only an extremely small portion of those are pink diamonds. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that the annual Rio Tinto Diamonds Pink Tenders contain exceptionally rare diamonds.