The Oppenheimer family and the Botswana government own the rest of De Beers' shares, 40 percent and 15 percent respectively.

De Beers, which is forecast to produce only half of the 2008 output, says although the third quarter production is a decline from the comparative period last year, it is still 43 percent higher than the second quarter production.

De Beers' third-quarter production of rough was its strongest since the fourth quarter of 2008. First-quarter production barely topped one million carats, followed by 5.5 million carats in the second quarter.

Since the second quarter, production has re-started at Orapa and Jwaneng while operations have also resumed in South Africa.

Anglo says production from De Beers' Canadian operations -Snap Lake and Victor - was impacted in the third quarter by a production holiday in August and that third-quarter production is "trending up from the first and second quarter of 2009 in line with stabilising market demand".

In 2008, De Beers recovered 48.132 million carats that sold for $6.89 billion. Thirty-two (32) million of the carats came from Debswana mines. To achieve half of the 2008 production, De Beers would have to produce 10 million carats in the fourth quarter, much of it by the company's mainstay, its Botswana mines.

For the year to-date, Anglo saw its production fall by 61 percent to approximately 14.5 million carats.

Anglo's platinum-refined production increased 16 percent to 629,000 ounces during the third quarter, but remained on track to achieve full-year production of 2.4 million ounces. Results for the full year will be announced on February 19 next year.

Anglo's production was directly impacted by De Beers' reductions at all of its mines in early 2009, which were enacted through a combination of production holidays and shift reductions.

But production has slowly resumed since mid-year and De Beers remains on target to end the year with only a 50 percent reduction in rough, compared with 2008.

In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper (of Johannesburg) last week, the chief executive of De Beers Botswana, Sheila Khama, said demand for diamonds had started to stabilise and that the company's mines were operating at 80 percent.

"Consumption has not improved to anywhere near the levels that we are accustomed to ... but the abrupt rate at which it was dropping has started to stabilise," she said.
"The pace of recovery was picking up in rough diamonds. We are seeing an improvement in the level of sales and the availability of finance to our clients."