Lucara gets $4.5 million for rare blue diamond

Canada’s Lucara Diamond Corp. (TSX:LUC) sold a 9.46-carat blue diamond for $4,515,000, or $477,272 per carat, as part of a diamond sale this week.

The Vancouver-based company announced earlier this month it had found the 9.46-carat rare type II blue diamond at its Karowe mine in Botswana.

William Lamb, Lucara president and CEO, said at the time the recovery of the blue diamond is a key gain for the company.

“The recovery of such a rare stone is of great importance to the Karowe asset,” he said.

“We had previously identified a population of type II diamonds at Karowe and the recovery of this rare blue diamond confirms the quality distribution of the diamonds being mined at Karowe,” he added.

Aside from the large blue diamond, Lucara also sold a small blue diamond weighing 0.64 carats for $24,500.

In addition to the Karowe mine in Botswana, the Africa-focused miner holds 75% of the Mothae project in Lesotho, which is currently in the trial mining stage.