De Beers Begins Building $94M Synthetics Center

RAPAPORT... De Beers subsidiary Element Six has started work on its new$94 million lab-grown-diamond facility just outside Portland, Oregon. The factory will manufacture synthetic diamonds exclusivelyfor De Beers' new fashion-jewelry brand, Lightbox Jewelry. The groundbreakingceremony took place Wednesday, Lightbox said. De Beers expects to complete the 60,000-square-foot facilityby August 2019, with production beginning in 2020. The facility will have the capacityto produce more than 500,000 carats of rough lab-grown diamonds per year. Itwill complement Element Six's existing manufacturing center in Ascot, UK.