Miners in Angola have unearthed a 170-carat pink diamond. The Australian company Lucapa Diamond Company, which operates the mine in northeastern Angola, announced on Wednesday that it is probably the largest pink rough diamond discovered worldwide in the past 300 years. Carat is the unit used to measure the weight of gemstones. One carat corresponds to 0.20 grams, so the gemstone find from South Africa weighs around 34 grams.
Based on the name of the mine, the diamond was christened "The Lulo Rose". The Angolan government, a partner of the Lulo mine, also celebrated the find. According to them, it is a type IIa diamond - the category includes particularly rare and pure stones.
"Lulo Rose" is now to be sold through an international tender by Angola's state diamond marketing company. Although the rough diamond still needs to be cut and polished to reach its full value - a process that can cause a stone to lose half its weight - it could change hands for an astronomical price.
This record "continues to show Angola as a major player on the world diamond mining stage," said Mineral Resources Minister Diamantino Azevedo. According to Lucapa, Angola's largest registered rough diamond to date was won in the Lulo mine in 2016, the white "Stone of February 4th" with 404 carats. The most expensive cut diamond of all time, the 59-carat "Pink Star", was auctioned in Hong Kong in 2017 for $71.2 million (currently around €70 million).
