Lucapa Diamond Company and its partners Endiama and Rosas and Petalas, have recovered two diamonds of over 100 ct each from the terraces of Mining Block 46 at the Lulo mine, in Angola.
The miner plans to offer the first, a 162.42 carat, type IIa diamond, as part of its normal run-of-mine sales later this month, it said Tuesday. It will sell a 116.14 carat rough, which it discovered the next day, by tender at a future date, along with other high-value, type IIa diamonds the company unearthed from the deposit recently.
Both diamonds were recovered in February, with a 162 ct diamond recovered first, and a 116 ct diamond recovered the following day.
The 116 ct Type IIa diamond will be sold through a tender at a future date, along with other high-value Type IIa diamonds recovered recently, while the 162 ct diamond will be sold as part of normal run-of-mine sales later this month.
Lucapa has assets in Africa and Australia, with interests in the Lulo diamond mine and the Mothae diamond mine, in Lesotho.
Australia’s Lucapa Diamond has unearthed a 235 carat type IIa diamond from its prolific Lulo mine, the second largest recovered at the Angola operation since it opened in 2015.
The find comes barely a week after the recovery of a 208 carat diamond at the same mine, which is the third-largest ever recovered from Lulo.
The new diamond was dug up from Mining Block 550, immediately south of Mining Block 19, which Lucapa said is the area that has yielded eight precious rocks over 100 carats to date.
Not surprisingly, the mine is considered the world’s highest dollar per carat alluvial diamonds operation, in which Lucapa has a 40% interest. The rest is held by Angola’s national diamond company (Endiama) and Rosas & Petalas, a private entity.
The partners have now recovered 40 diamonds weighing more than 100 carats and four over 200 carats at Lulo. In 2016, only a year after beginning commercial production, Lulo produced the largest ever diamond recovered in Angola a 404 carat white stone later named the “4th February Stone”.
“Lulo continues to demonstrate it is a prolific producer of large diamonds. To unearth three +100 carat diamonds with two being over 200 carats in such a short space of time from different areas of the concession, makes us more determined to find the primary source, by dedicating even more resources to the exploration program,” Lucapa managing director, Nick Selby, said in the statement.
Angola is the world’s fifth diamond producer by value and sixth by volume. Its industry, which began a century ago under Portuguese colonial rule, is successfully lessening government regulations and restrictions in favour of a greater participation by private entities.
Lucapa has recovered a 180.87-carat Type IIa white diamond at its Lulo alluvial mine, in Angola.
It’s the second +100 carat diamond of the year so far. In February it found a 150-carat Type IIa D-color white diamond.
And it’s the 37th +100 carat since since the Australian miner began commercial production at Lulo in 2015.
Last November the 170.2-carat Lulo Rose, believed to be the largest pink diamond found in the last 300 years, was sold at tender for an undisclosed sum.
Lucapa, which also operates the Mothae mine, in Lesotho, has reported encouraging exploration results from its ongoing exploration program to discover the primary kimberlite source at Lulo.
Pic of the 180.87-carat Type IIa white diamond, courtesy Lucapa
