Lucara's price a carat rose 24% as its prices fell

ITwenty-four per cent fewer stones, six per cent less money

The distance between those two figures is the quarter. Dividing the company's own revenue by its own carats gives $700.22 a carat realised this quarter against $566.30 a year ago, a rise of 23.7%, arithmetic this desk has done and no source publishes. The results were released on 7 August.

The company's own commentary points the other way: average prices per carat declined across both channels, with tender prices down 5% and Clara prices down 17%, which it attributes to continued pricing pressure on mid-range and lower-grade stones.

Both statements are true at once, and the reconciliation is the finding. All of the gain came from the mix, none of it from price. What Lucara sold this quarter was a smaller and heavier parcel into a market quoting less for everything in it.

The company does not publish a size breakdown of the goods it sold, so the mix cannot be traced line by line from the release, and it is worth saying plainly that it is not a story about more big stones reaching the surface either: specials, the stones above 10.8 carats, came in at 176 for the quarter against 242 a year ago, down 27%.

Fewer carats sold, fewer specials recovered, lower quoted prices in both channels, and a realised average up almost a quarter. Only the composition of what went to market can carry that.

IIA quarter that repaired a quarter

The profit line has the same double reading and it needs subtraction to see. Second-quarter net income was $15.6 million against $12.5 million a year earlier, up about 25%. First-half net income was $1.0 million against $12.4 million, down 92%.

Take the quarter out of the half and the first quarter of 2026 carried a loss of roughly $14.6 million, this desk's arithmetic from the company's two published figures. The second quarter did not lift the year; it repaired a first quarter that had gone badly.

Underneath, the plant ran well: 761,848 tonnes of ore processed, 90,082 carats recovered at a grade of 10.9 carats per hundred tonnes, of which 6,973 came from tailings, and an operating cost of $23.76 a tonne, down 11% from $26.76.

IIIWhat the second half has to carry

The guidance held, and holding it is a bigger commitment than it looks. Full-year revenue guidance stays at $100 million to $130 million against $62.8 million banked in the first half, which leaves $37.2 million to $67.2 million to find in the second.

Carats-sold guidance stays at 340,000 to 360,000 against 138,297 sold in the half, requiring between 201,703 and 221,703 carats in the remaining two quarters, or 59% to 62% of the year's sales after halfway. Those three second-half figures are this desk's subtraction, not the company's.

Behind it sits $243.6 million of cash at 30 June against $342.8 million of bonds payable with nothing drawn on the working capital or project facilities, an underground project with $275.9 million of completion cost still to spend including contingency and full production expected in the first half of 2028, and an open pit on track to finish in the fourth quarter of this year.

In July the Botswana Department of Mines licensed the 15-person auxiliary winder and the 105-person man and material winder on the production shaft.