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The largest rough diamond discovered since 1905, the 1,758 carat Sewelo, was revealed with great fanfare last April, named in July and then largely disappeared from view. Now it has resurfaced with a new owner Louis Vuitton the luxury brand better known for its logo-bedecked handbags than its mega-gems, which has been present on Place Vendôme, the heart of the high jewelry market, for less than a decade.

Discovered in April 2019 at the Karowe mine in Botswana owned by Lucara Diamond Corp, a Canadian miner, the baseball-size Sewelo is the second largest rough diamond ever mined.

The Sewelo is the largest rough diamond ever found in Botswana a country that has become the poster child for responsible mining and the third very large diamond discovered in Karowe.

The mine has produced the 813 carat Constellation, uncovered in 2015 and sold for $63 million to Nemesis International in Dubai, a diamond trading company in partnership with the Swiss jeweler de Grisogono and the Lesedi La Rona, discovered in 2016 and sold to Graff for $53 million.

When Lucara held a competition to name the Sewelo, 22,000 Botswana citizens submitted entries. “Sewelo” means “rare find” in Setswana.

Lucapa Diamond Company has recovered a 117-carat, gem-quality diamond from its Lulo alluvial mine in Angola.

The stone is the miner’s 14th over 100 carats from Lulo to date, and its first in that size category this year, it said Thursday. Lucapa found the stone in mining block 19, located between its high-value mining block 6 and mining block 8 portions of the deposit. That area was where the company recovered the 404-carat 4th February Stone, Angola’s largest diamond, which sold for $16 million in 2016.

“The recovery of this gem-quality, 117-carat diamond represents a positive start for Lulo in 2020 as we continue rolling out our plans to increase production and revenues this year,” said Lucapa CEO Stephen Wetherall.

Source: Diamonds.net

Las Vegas… Diamond market conditions improved in December as US and Chinese holiday demand helped raise sentiment. Polished prices stabilized and improved for sizes under 1 carat, supported by shortages of G+, VS2+ goods. High-end qualities (F+, VVS+) of 3 carats and larger diamonds remain weak.

The RapNet Diamond Index (RAPI™) for 1-carat diamonds slid 0.2% in December and 5.3% for the full year. The index for 0.30- and 0.50-carat stones firmed in the fourth quarter following steep declines earlier in the year. 

The market in 2019 was supply-driven, as noted in the Diamond Price Statistics Annual Report that appears in this month’s issue of Rapaport Magazine.

An oversupply of diamonds set a negative tone, leaving the trade with numerous diamonds that were difficult to sell. Inventory levels declined in the fourth quarter, but there were a lot of lower-quality goods still available at the end of December.

The year also saw a change in consumer patterns. Multi-channel jewelry shopping and online diamond trading gained momentum. That gave buyers access to larger inventories and more information about the goods, enabling them to cherry-pick the best-quality stones and leaving the trade with large quantities of less desirable merchandise.

The industry in 2019 also endured tight manufacturing profits, a reduction in bank credit, and cautious Far East demand resulting from uncertainty about the US-China trade war and Hong Kong protests.

There is some optimism for the new decade. The industry can expect lower rough supply, market consolidation, further changes to the way diamonds are bought and financed, greater use of technology, an emphasis on ethical sourcing, and segmentation of lab-grown and natural diamonds into distinct markets, as the December 2019 Rapaport Research Report predicts.

To navigate these trends and bring about an upswing in diamond prices, the industry must invest in marketing and develop more efficient processes and inventory management. Diamond jewelry sales must outperform the last decade’s and should exceed $100 billion by 2030.

Source: Diamond.net

Before the 2010s decade came to an end, Laurence Graff, the founder of the luxury jewelry and gem brand that bears his name, had one more deal to make with the acquisition of a 20.69-carat fancy yellow diamond named the “Firebird.”

The Asscher-cut diamond with VS1 clarity and “excellent polish and symmetry,” according to the report from the Gemological Institute of America, was purchased from Russian mining giant, Alrosa, the world’s largest diamond miner by volume.

“We are delighted to see that such a beautiful exceptional diamond has found an equally exceptional owner,” Sergey Ivanov, Alrosa CEO, said in a statement making the announcement December 24. “It is more than just a regular deal for Alrosa. This is the first direct purchase of Graff made without intermediaries, and we hope that it will be the beginning of a new phase of our work.”

The diamond was cut and polished at Alrosa’s recently opened manufacturing facility. The company says the yellow gem resembles “a simultaneous ensemble of flame, reflections of sunlight on crystal water and a trail of sparkles coming from the tail of a Firebird.”

Alrosa says the diamond is a part of “The Spectacle,” a diamond collection dedicated to the Russian ballet. There are two more diamonds in the collection, one of them is “Spirit of the Rose,” a 14.8 ct fancy vivid purple-pink stone unveiled in August. Another diamond will be announced later this year when cutting and polishing is finished.

The diamond is named after the legendary ballet “Firebird,” which premiered in 1910 at the Grand Opera in Paris. The ballet was the first of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes productions to have an all-original score. It had the idea of creating a “national ballet” driven by the popularity of Russian folk songs and dances among the French public. The plot is based on the Russian fairytale of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. The music was composed by the Igor Stravinsky, the famed Russian composer.

The Firebird diamond was created from a 34.17 ct rough diamond named “Stravinsky,” that bears both rare honey-yellow overtones and exceptional clarity, according to Alrosa. Discovered at the “Ebelyah” mine in Yakutia, the gem became the largest yellow rough diamond extracted in Russia in 2017. It was defined by its naturally-occurring shape, smooth structure and, most certainly, by its incredible intensity and homogeneity of color.

For Graff, based in London, the purchase caps another year of notable acquisitions and unveilings, led by the April reveal of the “Graff Lesedi La Rona,” a 302.37-carat D-color, high-clarity stone that the brand says is the “world’s largest square emerald cut diamond” and the “largest highest clarity, highest color diamond ever graded by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).” It is the main diamond cut and polished from the 1,109-carat Lesedi La Rona rough, which was purchased in 2017 by Laurence Graff. In addition to the main diamond, 66 “satellite” diamonds have been polished from the rough, ranging in size from under a carat to more than 26 carats.

Source: Forbes

The Western Australian government has invited Gibb River Diamonds and India Bore Diamond Holdings to mine at the Ellendale deposit.

The companies will pay rental fees on the areas in which they set up operations, rather than owning that portion of the site outright, the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS), told Rapaport News last week.

Although DMIRS has already conducted a recent geological exploration of the area to confirm there are still diamond prospects, both companies will need to explore the area further, speak with key stakeholders in the region, and develop mining plans for approval by the state government.

“It’s not going to happen overnight, but restarting mining operations at the former Ellendale mine will be a high point in the rejuvenation of diamond exploration and mining in the Kimberley [region of Western Australia],” Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston noted.

Gibb and Indian Bore will take on Ellendale’s E4 and E9 pits, and will also have access to storage facilities and infrastructure that belonged to previous Ellendale owner Kimberley Diamond Company before it went into administration in 2015. Since then, the government has been managing the property through its abandoned-mines program. Last year, it announced it was seeking expressions of interest in the site.

Ellendale produced around half of the world’s supply of rare yellow diamonds during peak production, and was also the main supplier of fancy-yellow diamonds for luxury-jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co.

Gibb recently purchased the Blina diamond project, which is adjacent to Ellendale. It is waiting on a final investment of AUD 2.5 million ($1.7 million) to begin mining the area. India Bore is a private company, established in 2015 by CEO Peter McNally, a mining executive with over 35 years of experience.

Source: Diamonds.net