A 170-carat pink diamond — dubbed The Lulo Rose — was discovered at the Lulo mine in the country’s diamond-rich northeast and is among the largest pink diamonds ever found, the Lucapa Diamond Company said in a statement to investors.
The “historic” find of the Type IIa diamond, one of the rarest and purest forms of natural stones, was welcomed by the Angolan government, which is also a partner in the mine.
“This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage,” Angola’s Mineral Resources Minister Diamantino Azevedo said.
The diamond will be sold at international tender, likely at a dazzling price. Although The Lulo Rose would have to be cut and polished to realize its true value, in a process that can see a stone lose 50 percent of its weight, similar pink diamonds have sold for record-breaking prices.
The 59.6 carats “Pink Star” was sold at a Hong Kong auction in 2017 for 71.2 million US dollars. The “Pink Star,” which was mined in Africa by De Beers in 1999 as a raw 132.5-carat gem and cut over a two-year period, remains the most expensive diamond ever sold.
The Lulo mine has already produced the two largest diamonds ever found in Angola, including a 404-carat clear diamond. The pink gemstone is the fifth largest diamond found at the mine where 27 diamonds of 100 carats or more have been found, according to Lucapa, which is based in Australia.
The pink diamond will be sold by international tender by the Angolan state diamond marketing company, Sodiam. Angola’s mines make it one of the world’s top 10 producers of diamonds.
“This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage for diamond mining and demonstrates the potential and rewards for commitment and investment in our growing diamond mining industry,” Diamantino Azevedo, Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas said, according to the Lucapa website.
The pink diamond is an impressive size but many clear diamonds are larger than 1,000 carats. The Cullinan diamond found in South Africa in 1905 tips the scales at 3,106 carats and it’s in the British Sovereign’s Scepter.
