Lucara’s record-breaking diamond discovery

According to Mining News Pro - The 1758-carat stone is the biggest diamond to be mined in Botswana and also the Karowe site.

Weighing in at close to 352 grams and measuring 83 millimetres x 62 millimetres x 46 millimetres, the diamond has been characterised as near gem of variable quality, which includes parts of high-quality white gem.

The discovery is the second diamond weighing over 1000 carats to be found at the 100 per cent Lucara-owned site in the last four years.

The resource-rich mine has paid dividends for Lucara since the introduction of XRT diamond recovery technology.

The state-of-the-art recovery circuit was commissioned in 2015 by Norwegian technology company, Tomra, leading to a multitude of breakthroughs for Lucara.

Since its introduction, a total of 12 diamonds in excess of 300 carats have been recovered at Karowe, of those, 50 per cent have been cateogrised as gem quality.

To date, 11 of the diamonds have been sold generating revenue in excess of US$158 million ($224.3 million) for Lucara, leading Lucara chief executive officer Eira Thomas to praise the XRT circuit.

“Lucara’s technologically advanced XRT diamond recovery circuit has once again delivered historic results,” she said.

“Karowe has now produced two diamonds greater than 1000 carats in just four years, affirming the coarse nature of the resource and the likelihood of recovering additional, large, high quality diamonds in the future.”

Botswana remains the world’s leading producer of high quality diamonds.