Lucara invests P26m to catch future �Lesedi la Rona�

Mbongeni Mguni | Friday August 19, 2016 14:42

 

Last November Lucara discovered the Lesedi la Rona 1,109 carat diamond at its Karowe Mine in the Boteti sub-district, the second largest diamond ever found.

However, Lesedi la Rona was originally much larger, with a 374 carat piece having broken off at some point of recovery.

“We can see how the 374 carat stone would have fit (into Lesedi la Rona) and this is a good example of why we are putting up the mega diamond recovery plant,” Lucara president and CEO, William Lamb, told BusinessWeek in Gaborone this week.

“As it is, we don’t know whether the break occurred because of the blasting or the plant. With the mega-recovery, we will recover the full stone.”

The mega-recovery plant is expected to recover whole diamonds of up to 100 millimetres in size, up from the current plant’s top size of 60 millimetres. Due next year, the project is on schedule and currently in detailed design stage with procurement of long lead items.

Lucara frequently recovers exceptional stones at Karowe and holds special auctions for them, such as the November 2015 auction which featured a 336 carat stone.

Lamb acknowledged that there were questions about the wisdom of investing in a mega-diamond plant, when Lucara was battling to sell Lesedi la Rona. The giant diamond failed to sell in June after bids could not reach the reserve price. “This is a learning process but as soon as we recover something big, the market already understands and value and rarity of these items and that’s an opportunity for us.

“The plant is about early recovery of value. It will not solely recover large stones, but it takes away the opportunity of breaking the stone and destroying value as it goes through the rest of the process.”

Lucara has arranged three private viewings of Lesedi la Rona for the first week of September in London.