Canada’s Lucara Diamond continues to find gem quality, coloured diamonds at its Karowe mine, in Botswana, which in April yielded the 1,758 carat Sewelô meaning “rare find” diamond, the largest ever recovered in the African country.
The Vancouver based miner has now recovered a 9.74 carat blue and a 4.13 carat pink diamond from direct milling of the South Lobe, the area that yielded the famous 1,111 carat “Lesedi La Rona” in 2015.
The announcement comes on the heels of last week’s display of a 123 carat gem quality, top white, Type II diamond, found at the same section of the mine.
It also follows the recent sale of a 2.24 carat blue for $347,222 per carat.
Karowe, which began commercial operations in 2012, has this year yielded 22 diamonds larger than 100 carats, eight of them exceeding 200 carats.
Since the start of the year, the miner has sold 19 diamonds each with an individual price in excess of $1 million at its quarterly tender sales. This includes seven diamonds that fetched more than $2 million each, and one diamond that carried a final price tag of over $8 million.
“Lucara is extremely pleased with the recovery of these rare, sizeable, fancy coloured diamonds, which have the potential to contribute meaningful value to our regular production of large, high-value type IIa diamonds,” chief executive, Eira Thomas, said in the statement.
The precious rocks will be put up for sale in December, during the company’s fourth quarter tender.
Lucara, which has focused efforts on the prolific Botswana mine this year, is close to completing a feasibility study into potential underground production and life of mine expansion at Karowe.
Source: mining.com