LUCARA Diamond Corp., the Toronto-listed miner, said on Monday it had recovered a 1,094 carat diamond from its Karowe mine in Botswana.
Karowe, which is currently being expanded underground, is prolific in yielding high value stones. The latest discovery is the sixth diamond over 1,000 carats mined at Karowe and comes less than a month after the company announced the recovery of a 2,492 carat diamond – the largest since the 3,106 carat Cullinan diamond was discovered in 1905.
The company said today the 1,094 carat stone bears “striking similarities” to a 692 carat piece which was sold last year for $13m. HB Antwerp, Lucara’s manufacturing partner, will polish this latest discovery.
William Lamb, President and CEO of Lucara Diamond, said the 1,094 diamond “further validates” the firm’s $683m underground expansion.
The last two discoveries are particularly fortuitous for Karowe because they were recovered from the ore type that Lucara will be targeting during the first years of its shift from opencast to underground operations.
“These continued discoveries of large, high-value diamonds demonstrate the consistent quality of our resource and its ability to deliver substantial returns,” Lamb said. “As we progress with our underground development, we’re increasingly confident in Karowe’s capacity to produce these legendary diamonds well into the future, cementing our position in the high-end diamond market,” he added.
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.
