Lucapa finds yet another large diamond in Angola
Australia's Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM) has discovered yet another large diamond at its prolific Lulo mine in Angola - a 46-carat pink stone, the largest coloured gem-quality rock ever recovered there.
The company said the gem-quality coloured diamond eclipsed both the 43-carat yellow gem found in January and the almost 39-carat pink dug up in September last year.
"The frequent recovery of large and premium-value diamonds from new areas along the Cacuilo river valley continues to illustrate the uniqueness and potential of the Lulo concession," the miner said in the statement.
The 46-carta pink is the largest coloured diamond found at Lulo to dateIt's been a good year for Lucapa so far, with the company fetching $1.7 million (A$2.1 million) in March from selling its Lulo findings.
The project, located 150km from Alrosa's Catoca mine, the world's fourth largest diamond mine, hosts type-2a diamonds which account for less than 1% of global supply.
Lucapa has a 35-year license for Lulo, which early last year bore a 404.2-carat white diamond, considered the largest diamond ever recovered in Angola and the biggest diamond ever found by an Australian company.
It also holds a 70% interest in the Lesotho-based Mothae project, located within 5 km of Gem Diamonds' (LON:GEMD) Let??eng mine, which in February yielded a 910-carat rock, the fifth biggest gem-quality diamond ever found.
Angola is the world's No.4 diamond producer by value and No.6 by volume. Its industry, which began a century ago under Portuguese colonial rule, is successfully emerging from a long period of difficulty as a result of a civil war that ended in 2002.
This diamond eclipses both the 43-carat yellow gem found in January and the almost 39-carat pink dug up in September last year. (Image courtesy of Lucapa Diamond.)