Lucapa Diamond unearths yet another high carat sparkler in Angola
46 carat pink diamond recovered from Mining Block 4 at Lucapa’s Lulo project.
Emerging diamond miner Lucapa Diamond Company (ASX: LOM) has unearthed yet another high-carat diamond (this time of the pink variety) from its African project portfolio.
Lucapa is currently progressing several exploration projects in Angola, Lesotho and Botswana, with an additional project venture in Australia.
The company announced that it has recovered a 46-carat pink diamond from the Lulo diamond project in Angola, a source of a series of high carat discoveries in recent years.
Lulo diamond project
Lulo is Lucapa’s flagship project which has been a prolific producer of alluvial diamonds that often grab headlines for their sheer size. To date, Lucapa’s Lulo project has produced 10 diamonds in excess of 100 carats, making it the highest dollar per carat alluvial project in the world.
Lucapa is developing Lulo alongside joint venture partners Empresa Nacional de Diamantes and Rosas & Petalas.
What makes this particular find significant for Lucapa is its location. The 46-carat sparkler was recovered from a new prospect dubbed “Mining Block 4”, an area planned for resource delineation later this year and set to be included in Lucapa’s alluvial JORC resource update to be published in the coming months.
Lulo was the source of an even larger 404-carat diamond back in February 2016 which set two records: the first being the biggest diamond ever found in Angola, and the second record being the largest diamond ever found by an Australian company – records that still stand to this day. The 404-carat find eventually sold for A$22.5 million, representing a price of A$55,585 per carat.
Lucapa says that its focus on high-value diamond production is designed to protect cash flows “in a sector of the diamond market where demand remains robust”.
The Perth-based miner is the midst of an expansive phase having just raised A$16.5 million from a new investor and existing shareholders to fund follow-up exploration of at its Brooking diamond project close to the Ellendale diamond mine in Western Australia’s west Kimberley, considered one of Australia’s most promising diamond mining areas.
Earlier this year, Lucapa reported that it had recovered 119 diamonds from 86 kilograms of sample material obtained from just one of 18 holes drilled at its Little Spring Creek prospect in WA.