THE WORLD’S SECOND largest diamond has been discovered in Botswana.

Lucara Diamond Corp, the Canadian company which owns the Karowe Diamond Mine in which the diamond was found, did not provide a valuation for the stone, but say that it is a massive 2,492 carats, second only to the 3,016-carat Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905.

William Lamb, president of Lucara, said that the company is “ecstatic” about the find.

It was one of the “roughest diamonds ever unearthed” and was detected using the compan’y Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology installed in 2017 to identify and preserve large, highvalue diamonds, the statement said.

Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi was due to view the massive stone today.

Tobias Kormind, managing director of Europe’s largest online diamond jeweller, 77 Diamonds, confirmed it was the largest rough diamond to be unearthed since the Cullinan Diamond, parts of which adorn Britain’s 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 will likely see more where this came from,” he said.

Botswana is one of the world’s largest producers of diamonds. The stones are its main source of income, accounting for 30% of GDP and 80% of its exports.

Before the find 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 stone in Botswana in 2021 using the same x-ray technology.

With reporting from © AFP 2024.