(Gaborone) A diamond of exceptional size, the second largest in the world at 2,492 carats, and which barely fits in the palm of a hand, has been found in a mine in Botswana, a Canadian mining company announced Thursday.
This precious stone, detected in the Karowe mine in the north-east of Botswana, the leading African producer of diamonds, is “one of the largest rough diamonds ever discovered”, underlines the Lucara company in a press release.
According to the Botswana government and several experts, it is the second largest ever found in the earth. In terms of carats, it is not far from the largest known diamond in the world, the “Cullinan”, of more than 3,100 carats, unearthed in South Africa in 1905.
“We are delighted to have recovered this extraordinary diamond,” Lucara CEO William Lamb said in the statement, which did not provide details on the value or quality of the find.
The diamond is expected to be presented to President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who says it is the largest ever found in the southern African country, and to the press in Gaborone later this afternoon.
“The historic discovery of this rough diamond, the largest in 120 years, is exciting,” said Tobias Kormind, Managing Director of 77 Diamonds, Europe’s largest online jeweller.
X-ray detection
According to him, this large, largely translucent stone is “the largest rough diamond unearthed since the discovery of the Cullinan Diamond”, which had been cut into several pieces, the largest of which had been “set in the British Crown Jewels”.
This discovery is “largely due to a recent technology” of X-ray detection, developed by the company Lucara and used since 2017, “which allows to extract larger precious stones from the ground without them breaking into pieces”, underlines the specialist. “It is therefore likely that we will see others” emerge, he added.
Botswana is one of the world’s largest producers of diamonds, which are its main source of income, accounting for 30% of GDP and 80% of its exports.
As Lucara points out in its press release, diamond revenues bring Botswana “considerable socio-economic benefits”, financing “essential areas such as education and health” as well as infrastructure in this country of 2.6 million people.
Before the discovery announced Thursday, the largest diamond discovered in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone also mined by Lucara in 2019 and named Sewelo, which means “rare discovery” in the Tswana language.
As big as a tennis ball, it had been bought by Louis Vuitton, the flagship brand of luxury giant LVMH, for an undisclosed price.
Lucara recalls in its press release that it also found a 1,174-carat diamond in Botswana in 2021, using the same X-ray technology used to identify the exceptionally large rough diamond this week.