Lucapa Unearths 195ct. Rough from Lulo Mine

Lucapa Diamond Company has recovered a 195-carat, type IIa rough from its Lulo alluvial mine in Angola. 

The stone is the sixth-largest diamond to be discovered at Lulo since it first began operations in 2015, Lucapa said Tuesday. It is also the fourth diamond over 100 carats retrieved so far this year. 

The find follows a 203-carat, type IIa rough the miner unearthed in March while processing run-of-mine stockpiled ore already on site. In February, the company dug up two type IIa stones, weighing 162.42 and 116.14 carats, on successive days.  

In total, Lucapa has produced 44 stones of more than 100 carats from Lulo. The company is currently working on restarting production at its Merlin mine in Australia and has several ongoing exploration projects. Those include the Orapa fields in Botswana, for which the company has decided not to renew its lease, it explained. 

Lucapa also owns the Mothae deposit in Lesotho, which it announced earlier this month it planned to offload. The miner has “several interested parties,” in addition to the Lesotho government, managing director Nick Selby said in a report of the company’s annual meeting released Tuesday.  

The company intends to focus primarily on its Angola and Australia projects, it noted. 

“[Angola] is the fourth-largest diamond producer in the world, and much of the diamond-rich provinces unexplored for primary-source kimberlites,” said Lucapa chairman Stuart Brown, who joined the company last month. “There is a well-accepted view from the exploration geologists that Angola has the greatest potential to become a world diamond powerhouse with further discoveries of major new deposits.” 

Image: The 195-carat rough diamond. (Lucapa Diamond Company)