Lucapa Tender Yields over $6M

RAPAPORT... Lucapa Diamond Company earned $6.4 million from its last rough sale of 2019, bringing its total for the year to $55 million.The miner sold 3,274 carats from its Lulo mine in Angola for $3.4 million at an average price of $1,037 per carat, it reported in December. Additionally, the company sold a total of 6,617 carats of rough from its Mothae mine in Lesotho, netting $3 million at an average price of $455 per carat. That was nearly half the average achieved during its previous tender, in October which included a 36-carat, D-color stone and a 64-carat, D-color, type IIa diamond. At its next tender, the miner plans to sell an 84-carat, high-quality white diamond it recently recovered from Lulo.Lucapa also withheld a 220-carat diamond it recovered in November from Mothae, as well as a 46-carat pink from Lulo. It plans to assess those for cutting and polishing in-house, it noted.During 2019, Lulo rough yielded $38.5 million, while Mothae stones garnered $16.5 million.Image: The 84-carat diamond recovered from Lulo mine. (Lucapa Diamond Company)