Ninety-five percent sold in Luanda, and Sodiam beats its book by 23%
TAGS cleared 95% of a Luanda tender of goods above 10.8 carats and called trading near normal. Sodiam's seventeenth auction took about $21.7 million net from 6,586.89 carats, 23.46% above expected value.
By The Rough Desk
What changed
Angola's rough is finding buyers, and at prices its own sellers did not forecast.
What it means
- Two Luanda results do not turn a market, and the 95% figure covers only the top of the size range, where money has been comfortable all year. But the direction is useful.
- Buyers are paying up for stones that cannot be replaced by a factory and walking away from the ones that can, and Angola happens to sit on the right side of that line. For a cutter, the read is simple: the scarcity premium is real above ten carats and still absent below one.
Key figures
| TAGS sell-through | 95% |
|---|---|
| goods on offer | 10.8ct+ |
| Sodiam 17th auction | $21.7M |
| carats sold | 6,586.89ct |
Source: Luanda
Ninety-five out of a hundred
Trans Atlantic Gem Sales, the Dubai tender house that markets Angolan production alongside the state trader Sodiam, closed a Luanda sale of goods above 10.8 carats with a 95% sell-through and described the result as a "return to near normal trading." In a year when nearly every rough seller has cut prices, withdrawn goods or done both, a 95% clearance is worth writing down.
The state channel says the same thing with more detail. Sodiam took approximately $21.7 million net from its seventeenth rough auction, selling 6,586.89 carats and beating its own expected value by 23.46%.
Twenty-seven of the thirty-four houses invited put in bids; viewing ran at Sodiam's Luanda premises from 22 to 25 June and electronic bidding closed on the morning of 26 June. An auction that lands nearly a quarter above the reserve book is not the behaviour of a market in retreat.
Average price per carat, by seller
Source: Luanda
Size, not geography
The split is by size, not by geography. In the same soft market, Petra's fourth-quarter revenue fell 44% to $38 million on weak tender prices and small goods, and De Beers' second-quarter average price dropped 37% to $110 a carat.
Gem Diamonds, selling Letseng's large Type IIa material, lifted its first-quarter average about 17% to roughly $1,501 a carat. Angolan tenders are built around exactly that end of the size curve, which is why they read as strength while the near-commercial book stays under water.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Gem Diamonds, Q1 2026 | $1,501 |
| De Beers, Q2 2026 | $110 |
Notes on this table
USD per carat. Large-stone producers against the mainstream rough book. The Gem Diamonds figure is its first quarter of 2026; the De Beers figure is its second quarter. The two are not the same period and are set side by side as orders of magnitude, not as a like-for-like comparison. Gem Diamonds' first-half average, published 28 July, is $1,395 a carat. Carat Capital graphics desk.
Both sides of the table
Angola intends to sell more of it. Endiama, the state mining company, has set out an expansion programme, and its commercial director Elton Escrivão has been making the case for the country as a growth source rather than a legacy one.
The government is also a member of the Global Diamond Consortium bidding for De Beers, which would put Angola on both sides of the rough market at once: producing the goods and owning a share of the channel that prices them.
The story so far
Go deeper
Corrections
Correction, 24 August 2026: this article as published compared Gem Diamonds' average of roughly $1,501 a carat with Petra's fourth quarter and De Beers' second quarter without saying which period the Gem figure covered. It is Gem Diamonds' first quarter of 2026, and the label has been added here and to Plate I. The figure was correct for that quarter and is unchanged. Gem Diamonds has since published a first-half average of $1,395 a carat on 42,624 carats, up 38% from $1,008, which is the number to set against a half-year comparison. Nothing about the Angolan results in this article, the 95% TAGS sell-through or Sodiam's $21.7 million, is affected.
Correction, 20 October 2026: this article as published gave De Beers' second-quarter average price as $105 a carat, down 32%. That is its first-half figure. De Beers' Q2 2026 production report, re-read on 20 October 2026, 123,318 bytes, says 'The H1 2026 consolidated average realised price declined by 32% to $105/carat'; its table gives the second quarter at $110, down 37%, with the price index at 69, down 17%. The text and Plate I now carry the quarter's $110, down 37%, which keeps the plate's note that the De Beers figure is its second quarter true. What was right as published: the Angolan results, the 95% TAGS sell-through, Sodiam's $21.7 million and the Petra and Gem Diamonds figures. Found by this paper's Editor on 20 October 2026.
Method
USD per carat. Large-stone producers against the mainstream rough book. The Gem Diamonds figure is its first quarter of 2026; the De Beers figure is its second quarter. The two are not the same period and are set side by side as orders of magnitude, not as a like-for-like comparison. Gem Diamonds' first-half average, published 28 July, is $1,395 a carat.