From ABC.NET Australia

A 15.2 carat heart-shaped pink diamond has been cut from the biggest gem discovered by an Australian mining company in Africa.

The Lucapa Diamond Company Limited cut and polished a 46 carat, pink-coloured rough diamond found earlier this year by Sociedade Mineira Do Lulo (SML) at the Lulo Diamond Project in Angola.

And, if you think the larger stone might be out of your price range, two other gems — pear-shaped diamonds weighing 3.3 carats and 2.3 carats each — were also cut from the original find.

Graded by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) as Fancy Intense Orangy Pink, with a top clarity grade of VVS1 and Excellent gradings for both polish and symmetry, the heart-shaped stone, weighing about 3 grams, was cut from the largest gem-quality coloured rough diamond recovered to date from Lulo mining operations.

According to GIA estimations, pink diamonds can be worth up to $2 million per carat.

In 2019, regulation changes in Angola allowed organisations such as SML to sell cut and polished diamonds and obtain a higher price than they would normally achieve for the sale of the uncut stone.

Ganga Junior, chairman of Empresa Nacional de Diamantes EP, one of Lucapa’s mining partners, said the ability to show off the final product to the market was “physical and visible evidence of the great potential of the Lulo mine”.

Lucapa chief executive and managing director Stephen Wetherall said pink-coloured diamonds made up less than 0.1 per cent of global diamond production.

“With the recent closure of the renowned Argyle underground mine in Australia, which produced about 90 per cent of the world’s natural pink diamonds, these diamonds are about to become even more scarce,” he said.

“This bodes well for the sale of the 15.2 carat polished pink diamond and other diamonds derived from this unique value accretive polishing partnership.”

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