We hardly ever hear any good news coming from the raw materials industry. This week however, there was some astonishing news. Miners from the Australian Lucapa Diamond Company have found one of the largest diamonds ever. The diamond ranks number 27 on the list of top diamonds. The largest diamond ever found is the Cullinan diamond. This one has been unearthed in 1905 in South-Africa and weighed over 3100 carat. Since then it has been divided in 9 smaller pieces and the largest one is now part of the British crown jewels, which are on display in the Tower of London. The recently discovered diamond in Angola is bit more modest, but still quite impressive. The stone of 404.2 carat measures about 7cm, roughly the length of a credit card. The “little piece of rock” has not been given an official diamond price yet.
Which diamond price will the recently discovered Angola-diamond get?
15 Jul 21
Lulo Diamond Project
The Lulo Diamond Project is a partnership between Endiama, Angola’s national diamond company, the Lucapa Diamond Company and a private investor, Rosas & Pétalas. Angola is the world’s fourth largest diamond producer. Only Russia, Botswana and Canada get larger volumes. The stone was found in the Lulo mine, about 630 km away from the capital Luanda. It has already been since the year 2007 that a similar discovery has been done in Angola. It was then that the “Angolan Star” with a weight 217.4 carat was found.
The Lulo Diamond Project has been exploiting a piece of land of 1.8 square kilometers in central Angola and according to the Lucapa Diamond Company, it has already yielded over 60 “large and special” diamonds. Lucapa, a relatively small mining company, is listed on the Australian ASX Stock Exchange. Leading up to the announcement of the new find, the shares have been suspended temporarily last week. When Lucapa resumed trade on Monday, its shares immediately increased in value by 30%.
Diamond price
Miles Kennedy, CEO of Lucapa, announced on the Australian television network ABC this historical find could be worth 20 million dollars. It will still be a while until we know an exact diamond price. New York diamond retailer Yehuda judged the colour and clarity and categorized it as IIa stone. Concretely this means the diamond has almost no impurities. The diamond has a D-colour which means it is basically colourless. These are rarest, and therefore the most valuable, diamonds. Only 2% of all the diamonds in the world are of the IIa-type and contain very few or no nitrogen atoms.
Lucapa has announced they are planning on selling the stone to finance further exploitation and expansion of the Angolan mine. Those who are too impatient to wait for the official price can take a look at BNT Diamonds for other investment diamonds with the best price/quality guarantee.
