Lucara, Sarine Partner for Rough Program

RAPAPORT... Sarine Technologies will provide digital services for LucaraDiamond Corp.'s new rough-sales platform, allowing customers to obtain diamondswith the exact specifications they require. Under the agreement, rough stones will undergo Sarine'sGalaxy inclusion mapping, creating a digital fingerprint containing informationon the diamond's attributes, including its size, color and quality. Lucara willupload that information to Clara Diamond Solutions, the miner's program for streamliningsales. Simultaneously, buyers will upload their specific polished-diamondrequirements, creating an online "order" on Clara, Lucara explained. Clara willuse Sarine's Advisor rough-planning technology and the miner's own analytics tomatch rough supply to polished demand. "Using these technologies in combination with ourproprietary analytics, Clara will sell rough diamonds on a stone-by-stonebasis, based on a customer's specific requirements and needs, aligning rough-diamondproduction to polished demand, and unlocking significant value throughout thediamond pipeline," Lucara CEO Eira Thomas said Monday. The system will eliminate the common process whereby minerssell assortments of rough diamonds together in batches, Lucara said. Instead, bymatching each stone to the purchaser's needs, Lucara can achieve the bestpossible price for each diamond, it argued. The miner will pilot Clara with several manufacturers and jewelersstarting in the third quarter, after which it will invite other diamondproducers and manufacturers to try the technology, it said. Image: Lucara Diamond Corp.