A massive 2,492-carat diamond – the second largest in the world – has been discovered in Botswana, the Canadian mining company that found the stone announced on Thursday, August 22.

The diamond was discovered in the Karowe diamond mine in northeastern Botswana using X-ray detection technology, Lucara Diamond said in a statement.

Lucara did not give an estimate of the find’s value. In terms of carat weight, the stone is second only to the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, discovered in South Africa in 1905.

“We are thrilled with the discovery of this exceptional 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara President William Lamb said in the statement.

The find is “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed” and was discovered using the company’s “Mega Diamond Recovery” X-ray technology, installed in 2017, which is used to identify and preserve large, high-quality diamonds, the statement said.

Lucara Botswana’s Managing Director Naseem Lahri presented the palm-sized translucent stone to President Mokgweetsi Masisi in his office later Thursday.

“I’m told this is the largest diamond discovered in Botswana so far and the second largest in the world,” Masisi said, congratulating the company on the find. “It’s precious.”

Botswana is one of the world’s largest diamond producers. According to the International Monetary Fund, diamond mining is the country’s main source of income, contributing 30 percent to GDP and covering 80 percent of the country’s exports.

The dry and sparsely populated country, which is home to about 2.5 million people, was poor at the time of its independence from Britain in 1966.

A year later, diamonds were discovered and today, according to the IMF, the country is the world’s largest producer by value.

Lucara says it pays the government a royalty of ten percent of the gross sales value of diamonds mined at Karowe, regardless of whether the diamond is sold as a rough or polished diamond.

“I can imagine building roads with a diamond this size,” Masisi said as he posed for photos with the giant stone.

One of the largest diamonds in the world

Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds, Europe’s largest online diamond jeweler, confirmed that this is the largest rough diamond since the Cullinan Diamond, which partially adorns the British Crown Jewels.

“This discovery is largely thanks to newer technology that allows larger diamonds to be extracted from the ground without breaking into pieces, so we’ll probably learn more about where these came from,” he said.

Before the discovery was announced on Thursday, the largest diamond discovered in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone mined by Lucara at the Karowe mine in 2019 and named Sewelo.

Lucara found a 1,174-carat diamond in Botswana in 2021 using the same X-ray technology. The mine began production in 2012 and has since sold 216 diamonds for more than $1 million each and more than 11 individual diamonds for more than $10 million each, it said.

The diamond mining industry is suffering from lab-grown diamonds and lower spending. “Diamond prices are going through a difficult time right now,” Masisi said. “But every diamond is precious and valuable. We need to optimize and get the best price for that diamond.”

The Financial Times reported that anonymous people close to Lucara estimated the stone’s value at over $40 million.

This story was published via AFP News

(Main and main image: Monirul Bhuiyan/ AFP)