Rio Tinto exits diamonds as Diavik closes. After 23 years of operations and more than 150 million carats of rough diamonds produced, the company ended mining at its last diamond mine, Diavik, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, on March 26, 2026. With this closure, it completes its departure from diamond production.
Rio Tinto Exits Diamond Mining as Diavik Closes
After 23 years of operations and more than 150 million carats of rough diamonds produced, the company ended mining at its last diamond mine, Diavik, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, on March 26, 2026. With this closure, it completes its departure from diamond production.
Diavik was Rio Tinto’s last producing diamond asset, the final step in a gradual withdrawal from the sector over the past decade. The company sold its stake in the Murowa mine in Zimbabwe in 2015, and in 2020 shuttered the Argyle mine in Australia, long the world’s leading source of pink, purple, and red diamonds.
Rio Tinto’s Role
A closer look at Rio Tinto’s production profile shows how tightly its output was tied to both asset changes and broader market conditions.
Production rose through the mid-2010s, reaching a quarterly peak of 7.2 million carats in Q4 2017. That period reflected the combined contribution of Argyle and Diavik, alongside relatively stable global demand. The sale of Murowa in 2015 had a visible but contained impact, with output stabilizing soon after.
The real structural break came in late 2020 with Argyle’s closure. Quarterly production fell sharply, from multi-million carat levels to roughly 3–4 million carats almost overnight. From that point on, Diavik became Rio Tinto’s sole source of diamond production.
In 2021, Rio Tinto consolidated its position at Diavik by acquiring Dominion Diamond’s 40% stake, taking full ownership of the mine. But ownership did not change the trajectory. As the mine approached the end of its life, production continued to decline, with quarterly output falling to around 1 million carats or less in recent periods.
With mining now concluded, Rio Tinto is expected to continue supplying the market through the sale of its remaining inventory. There is also potential for additional recovery from tailings, which could extend supply modestly without new mining activity. At the same time, the company maintains an advanced exploration project in Angola, suggesting that, while it is exiting production, it is not entirely stepping away from the diamond space.
Rio Tinto’s exit is symbolically significant. Once a major global producer, the company played a meaningful role in shaping supply, particularly through Argyle’s flow of goods to India and its dominance in the fancy-colored diamond segment.
Its departure further concentrates supply among fewer producers and removes a meaningful source of volume from the market.
Canada’s Diamond Decline
In Canada, Diavik’s closure is part of a broader pattern. De Beers closed Snap Lake in 2015 and Victor in 2019. Stornoway shut down Renard in 2023, while Jericho in Nunavut never managed to establish sustained operations. Today, the remaining major assets are Gahcho Kué, jointly owned by De Beers and Mountain Province, and the struggling Ekati mine, alongside a number of smaller exploration projects.
Market Implications
From a market perspective, Diavik’s closure reinforces a longer-term trend: constrained primary supply. Demand remains cyclical and uneven, but the steady reduction in mine output, now compounded by Rio Tinto’s exit, points to tighter supply conditions over time.
This is not an abrupt exit, but the end of a decade-long wind-down defined by asset sales, mine closures, and declining production.
The Takeaways: Consolidation and Structure
More importantly, the shrinking number of producing mines, and with it mining companies, means further consolidation at the upstream end of the pipeline. That dynamic is likely to strengthen the relative position of dominant players such as De Beers and ALROSA, potentially improving their ability to manage supply and stabilize the market.
One final thought: the companies getting through this period are long-term players focused on diamonds as a business, not on managing the next quarter’s results.