South African diamond miner Petra Diamonds has found a 20-carat blue diamond at its Cullinan Mine, the company announced on Tuesday.
Describinf the stone as an “exceptional” 20-carat blue gem quality diamond, Petra said the rock demonstrated that Cullinan remained a significant source of rare blue diamonds in the world.
“Today’s recovery not only demonstrates the quality of Petra’s asset base, as the Cullinan diamond mine remains a significant source of rare blue diamonds, but it again confirms the prevalence of exceptional stones in the Cullinan orebody as well as the ability of the mine’s plant to recover the full spectrum of diamonds,” the company said in a statement.
Founded in 1905 and a source of British royal diamonds collection, Petra is not new to rare diamond finds having previous discovered a 424.89 carat exceptional D colour diamond at the same mine in April this year.
Four years ago, the miner discovered “The Blue Moon of Josephine” – a 29.6 carat blue diamond – which fetched a price of US$48.5 million, in what was then touted as a world record price per carat at auction for any diamond.
NM/jn/APA