The Argyle diamond mine, owned by Rio Tinto Diamonds, announced that they will remain open. The surface mining opportunities of diamonds have exhausted and they will now have to use underground mining processes. Argyle will be spending some $900 million to move to the underground mining operations with production dropping to about 60% of the current 34 million carats per year. The Argyle mine provides about 17% of the world volume of diamonds but most of the diamonds are smaller, near gem quality and often brown in color.

Colored diamond lovers worldwide are glad to hear the Argyle is continuing operations because the Argyle mine is the leading producer of colored diamonds, especially the celebrated pink colors.

Over 250,000 workers in India whose jobs depend on the supply of these smaller, lower quality stones will benefit from the decision of the mine to stay open. With the lower produce and higher costs of underground mining, the price of Argyle diamonds is expected to increase as much as 15% over the next several years. However, the cost of rough diamonds is only a small part of the polished diamond price so the finished products are only expected to increase about 3% in price due to this change in mining operations.