The current situation of low prices of rough diamonds has prompted Petra Diamonds to suspend operations at its Kono project in Sierra Leone. A decision on starting the operations once again will be taken once the market of rough diamond improves enough so as to give suitable good returns on the trial mining production of the Kono mines. So far, the trial mining production at the mine has generated over 4,400 carats of diamonds.

The Kono mine is in its advanced exploration stage. Of the diamonds produced in the trial mining stage, 2,697 carats of diamonds were sold in Antwerp recently, for a value of $125,000.