Lucara’s Karowe Diamond Mine in Botswana just produced one of the five largest diamonds ever found, continuing a series of noteworthy diamond recoveries on those premises.
Measuring 67 x 49 x 45mm, the stone is a high white diamond weighing 998 carats.
The recent production run has produced a number of top quality stones of 273, 105, 83, 73, and 69 carats in weight. Last year the mine made history when the 1,758-carat Sewelô diamond was recovered there, the second-largest rough crystal ever found. The 1,111 carat Lesedi La Rona, the third-largest rough crystal ever found (also recovered by Lucara in 2016) was famously sold to Graff the following year.
You can read about the Sewelô and Lesedi La Rona along with the 813 carat Constellation and 549 carat white diamond discovered at the Karowe Diamond Mine in our prior GemBlog post: A foto-feast of four delicious diamonds
Eira Thomas, CEO of Lucara commented:
Lucara is extremely pleased with the continued recovery of large high quality diamonds from the South Lobe of the Karowe mine. To recover two +500 carat diamonds in 10 months along with the many other high quality diamonds across all the size ranges is a testament to the unique aspect of the resource at Karowe and the mine’s ability to recover these large and rare diamonds. Operations at Karowe have continued through 2020 and operational challenges, due to Covid-19 restrictions, have been met with professionalism by the team. We look forward to a safe finish to 2020 and continued success at Karowe as we remain focussed on strong operations to ensure maximum resource performance.
We spotlighted Eira Thomas, “The Queen of Diamonds,” in this GemBlog post from June 2020.
This month’s 998 carat find is clivage, meaning it will need to be split prior to manufacture into polished gemstones. All rough diamonds from the Karowe mine weighing 10.83+ carats are analyzed, cut and polished by HB Antwerp, in a partnership agreement between the manufacturer and Lucara, in return for a share of the profit of the finished stone.
