Massive 404-carat diamond discovered in Angola
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Lucapa Diamond Company has announced the discovery of a massive 404.2-carat, which it claims is the 27th largest diamond ever discovered.
The type IIa D-colour diamond, which was discovered at the firm’s Lulo Diamond Project in Angola’s Lunda Norte Province, is the biggest recorded diamond ever found in Angola – one of the world’s top four diamond producing nations.
It also breaks the record as the biggest diamond discovered by an Australian company and smashes the size of the previous largest diamond to be recovered at Lulo, which weighed 133.4 carats.
Speaking to Australian-based ABC News, Miles Kennedy, chairman of Lucapa, said the “spectacular” white diamond was considered to be of excellent quality and could be valued at more than $20m (£14m).
He added: “When we first looked at the property, 3,000 square kilometres of untouched ground, 700 kilometres inland from the coast, you are talking about a very, very remote area. The results today are a wonderful vindication of eight years of pretty hard work.
“It’s the biggest diamond ever recorded from the country of Angola and it’s the biggest diamond ever recovered by an Australian diamond miner.”
The previous record for Angola’s largest diamond belonged to a stone known as the ‘Angolan Star’ – a 217.4-carat gem recovered from the Luarica mine in 2007.
