Rio Tinto reported that its diamond production grew 5 percent year on year to 3.706 ‎million carats in the third quarter of 2012. Production increased mainly due to higher ‎grades of diamonds recovered from Rio Tinto’s wholly-owned Argyle mine in Australia. ‎

Argyle's production rose 7 percent to 2.454 million carats during the quarter. Rio Tinto’s 60 ‎percent share in Canada’s Diavik mine reported production was flat at 1.160 million carats, and its ‎‎78 percent stake in Zimbabwe’s Murowa mine had production of 92,000 ‎carats, up 28 percent. ‎

During the first nine months of the year, Rio Tinto’s diamond production increased 13 ‎percent to 9.873 million carats. Argyle's production rose 17 percent to 6.461 million carats, ‎while the company’s Diavik production grew 5 percent to 3.046 million carats and its ‎Murowa production increased 9 percent to 215,000 carats. ‎

Rio Tinto expects full year production to reach 12.6 million carats, which would be 7 ‎percent higher than in 2011. ‎