Featured Image Credit: LUCAPA DIAMOND CO.
Topics: Australia, Money, World News
Poppy Bilderbeck
A mining company has revealed it's found a diamond which could be worth a whopping $102 million and is the biggest pink diamond in 300 years.
The Lucapa Diamond Company - a diamond producer with two mines in Angola and Lesotho - was mining in the Southern African nation at the Lulo alluvial mine, located in a riverbed.
The company may not have struck gold, but what they did find has led to great excitement.
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The miners discovered a pink gemstone which weighs 34 grams and is 170 carats and decided to call it the Lulo Rose.
Stephen Wetherall, the chief executive of Lucapa, explained how only 'one in 10,000 diamonds is pink'.
The Lulo Rose reportedly has hardly any or none impurities and subsequently falls under the category of a type 2a diamond.
Wetherall told the Associated Press: " So you're certainly looking at a very rare article when you find a very large pink diamond."
The chief executive went on to note how the company is now 'looking for the kimberlite pipes that brought these diamonds to the surface'. "When you find these high-value large diamonds… it certainly elevates the excitement from our perspective in our hunt for the primary source," he continued.
Wetherall explained the size of the diamond isn't the only factor which could see it receive a high bid at auction, but that its pink colour also raises its value.
Sodiam - an Angolan National Diamond Trading Company - is set to sell the diamond.
However, independent fine jewellery specialist Joanna Hardy told the BBC she believes the Lulo Rose may not even make it to auction and could be snapped up quickly by clients before it even has the chance to be bid on.
The Lulo alluvial mine has previously unearthed a series of large diamonds, including four which are even bigger in size than the Lulo Rose.
Other diamonds found have also had a far superior carat count, with one out of two of the largest diamonds ever discovered by the company having 404 carats.
The mine is one of the world's top 10 diamond producers.
Diamantino Azevedo, the Angola's minister of minerals, oil, and gas, reflected on the finding: "This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage for diamond mining and demonstrates the potential and rewards for commitment and investment in our growing diamond mining industry."
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