Lucapa sells $5m of Lulo diamonds

The parcel carried 4000 carats at $1239 per carat and did not include seven other diamonds recently uncovered, which have been sidelined for a future sale.

Lucapa’s 2021 sales have now reached $27.5 million at $1185 per carat. The latest parcel follows another sale earlier in May, from the company’s Mothae kimberlite mine in Lesotho, southern Africa.

The Mothae sale was worth $1.5 million at $420 per carat, however a diamond sales and purchase agreement with Safdico International means Mothae will receive minimum average earnings of $630 per carat for the first year of the agreement.

Lucapa’s strong start to 2021 hasn’t been an accident either. A run of diamond sales on track to break records has come after Lucapa updated its JORC inferred resource for the Lulo mine in March.

Its total area increased by 25 per cent, and the diluted volume increased by more than 70 per cent.

Lucapa managing director Stephen Wetherall explained the company’s recent increase in diamond discoveries.

“The increases in the Lulo diamond resource over the last few yers is a direct result of disciplined investment in the alluvial exploration and delineation programs by SML,” Wetherall said.

“The 35 per cent increase in carats to almost 136,000 carats is a new record for carats in the Lulo diamond resource notwithstanding six years of mining depletion.”

Lucapa sold more than $40 million worth of diamonds last year. In March 2021, Lucapa also sold a 5619-carat parcel of rough diamonds for $US5.9 million at $US1050 per carat.