Rough diamond prices are still drifting lower, and that matters because the market is already carrying the weight of mine closures, weaker demand, and a growing shift toward lab grown stones. Paul Zimnisky’s global rough diamond price index recently stood at 103.5, a level that is now less than half of its peak in early 2022, which shows how much the market has changed in a short time.
One reason the decline feels so sharp is that diamond mining has become a smaller and more concentrated business. The Zimnisky index is designed to track natural rough diamond prices, not lab grown stones, and it reflects both primary market sales and secondary market transactions. That matters because natural diamond producers are not just competing with each other, they are also competing with a consumer market that now has more choices than it once did.
The pressure on prices has already forced several major mines to shut down. In Canada, De Beers ended production at Snap Lake and later Victor, while Rio Tinto closed Diavik in the Northwest Territories after years of production. Renard in Quebec also moved into creditor driven control after Stornoway Diamond Corp. ran into financial trouble, and the mine later faded from the list of active Canadian operations.
That leaves only a handful of meaningful diamond mines still operating in the country. One of them is Ekati, now owned by Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd. (ASX: BDM), which has been trying to keep production going at the Misery pipe. Another is Gahcho Kue in the Northwest Territories, where De Beers and Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. (TSX: MPVD) continue to produce, even as the economics remain tight.
The broader picture is not much more encouraging outside Canada. Many diamond producing countries are seeing lower margins because rough prices have not recovered enough to offset rising costs, and the supply of large, high-quality stones is not replacing itself fast enough to support the kind of expansion the sector saw in earlier decades. At the same time, lab grown diamonds have been undercutting natural stones on price, which has made it harder for miners to argue that scarcity alone can protect value.
That is why mine closures matter beyond the companies directly involved. When a diamond mine shuts, it is usually not only because the ore body is exhausted. It is often because the remaining ore is no longer worth mining at current prices, especially after accounting for labor, energy, transport, and the cost of stripping waste rock. In other words, the price signal is doing as much work as the geology.
The lesson is simple, the diamond business is no longer defined by growth stories and glamorous discoveries, but by survival, cutbacks, and a smaller number of operating mines. If rough prices stay near current levels, more closures and suspensions are likely to follow, even if the world still wants diamonds in the abstract.
