The Lucapa Diamond Company has recovered another large diamond – this time an exceptional 63.05-carat stone from the alluvial mining operations at the Lulo diamond concession in Angola.
The firm said that testing with a Yehuda colorimeter has confirmed that it is a Type IIa diamond, the rarest category of diamonds in the world.
It is the third-largest diamond recovered at Lulo after the 131.40-carat and 95.45-carat gems recovered.
It is the biggest diamond recovered since Lucapa and its partners commenced commercial alluvial diamond mining operations at Lulo in January 2015 and "highlights the potential for widespread recovery of these large diamonds".
Lucapa CEO Stephen Wetherall commented: “This exceptional recovery further underlines the potential of the Lulo diamond field to consistently produce large gems of exceptional quality across the whole mining license area. The consistent recovery of large special stones of Type IIa nature materially impacts the overall average dollar per carat of the production and therefore the economics of our diamond mining and exploration activities at Lulo.
“The recovery of this diamond also comes at an exciting time for Lucapa and our partners as we prepare to commence mining at the higher grade BLK_08 area after completion of the necessary overburden stripping post the Angolan wet season. BLK_08 is where we recovered our largest diamond to date, a 131 carat stone, during a preliminary bulk sampling program that delivered an exceptional sample grade of 95 carats per 100 cubic meters.
“Given the diamond mining results achieved to date have mirrored our initial estimates derived from our bulk sampling grades, we are confident of recovering more exceptional diamonds from this higher grade area. Our ultimate goal at Lulo is to locate the primary kimberlite source or sources from the priority kimberlite targets identified at Lulowhich include the four pipes that preliminary testing has already shown to be diamond bearing - and our recently announced kimberlite diamond program aims to achieve this.”
