TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian precious gem producer Dominion Diamond Corp late on Thursday reported a profit for the October quarter, boosted by higher-than-expected rough diamond output at the Diavik and Ekati mines, in the Northwest Territories.

For its 2015 financial year's third quarter, Dominion reported a consolidated net profit attributable to shareholders of $25.5-million, or $0.30 a share, compared with a net loss of $4.8-million, or $0.06 a share, in the comparable period last year.

Sales rose 50% to $222.3-million. Dominion earned $141.9-million and $80.4-million from the sale of 458 000 ct of Ekati and 696 000 ct of Diavik rough diamonds, respectively.

In step with the two previous quarters, diamond output at the Ekati mine was driven by higher-than-expected grades and operational improvements to the processing plant.

At October 31, the company had rough diamond inventory with an estimated market value of about $350-million.

Dominion announced that it planned to initiate a dividend following its year-end results in April, with the amount to be determined at that time.

“This decision by the board is based on our confidence that we can both fund our expansion plans for the business, as well as sustain regular distributions to our shareholders,” acting chairperson Dan Jarvis said.

The diamond market was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak commodities market that had seen several commodity prices fall to multi-year lows.

Dominion said that the US market for diamond jewellery represented about 40% of global consumption and anecdotal evidence of sales in the important fourth calendar quarter had been “very encouraging”.

Underlying demand for wedding jewellery in Mainland China remained strong; however, the overall macro-economic challenges facing China and Japan had dampened market expectations.

Rough diamond prices moderated during the quarter, but the company's average rough diamond prices remained about 4% higher to the end of the third finacial-year quarter.