CANADIAN-listed Lucara Diamond has just recovered the largest diamond ever found since the world-famous Cullinan diamond at its Karowe mine in north-eastern Botswana.
Lucara detected and recovered the 2,492 carat stone using its Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray transmission (XRT) technology which was installed in 2017 to identify and preserve large, high value diamonds.
Diamonds of this size are at great risk of being broken up during the normal ore-crushing processes on an operating mine. Diamond-bearing kimberlites vary hugely in geological composition with rare examples like Karowe regularly hosting large diamonds of more than 100 carats.
The largest diamond ever recovered was the Cullinan Diamond which weighed 3,106 carats and was named after Thomas Cullinan, owner of the Premier diamond mine near Pretoria where it was discovered in January 1905. The mine – now called the Cullinan Mine – is still in operation today owned by London-listed Petra Diamonds which bought it from De Beers.
Karowe is famous for producing large, “exceptional” diamonds with previous finds including the 1,758 carat Sewelo stone and the 1,109 carat Lesedi La Rona diamond.
Lucara CEO William Lamb commented, “this discovery reinforces Karowe’s position as a truly world-class diamond mine and highlights the continued success of our operational and underground development strategy.
“We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary diamond. The find not only showcases the remarkable potential of our Karowe mine but also upholds our strategic investment in cutting-edge XRT technology.”
The discovery is particularly fortuitous for Karowe because the huge stone was recovered from the same particular ore type that Lucara will be targeting during the first years of its shift from opencast to underground operations.
That transition to underground operations had caused major financial issues for Lucara resulting in the resignation of former CEO Eira Thomas in August last year as the company battled to secure financing.
Lamb announced in January that Karowe’s debt package had been successfully restructured and the $683m underground expansion would be completed.
The Karowe mine was originally known as the AK6 kimberlite project, owned by a joint venture consisting of De Beers and the former African Diamonds – an exploration company founded by serial mining entrepreneur John Teeling.
De Beers and African Diamonds fell out and fought a corporate battle over the future of AK6 because majority shareholder De Beers was negative over the potential mine’s prospects.
That was resolved when African Diamonds brought in Lucara as an ally to buy out De Beers and Lucara subsequently took over African Diamonds to get full control of the deposit.
