Australia’s Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM) has found yet another large sparkler at its prolific Lulo mine in Angola — a 114-carat diamond, the eleventh 100-plus carat diamond recovered to date and the third this year.
The company said the stone will be added to an inventory of large diamonds being held for sale at a later date.
Last week, the junior miner said Lulo had yielded 118 special diamonds in the first half of 2018, including a 46-carat pink stone, the largest coloured gem-quality rock ever recovered there.
Lucapa has a 35-year license for the project, which in February bore a massive 404.2-carat white diamond, considered the largest diamond ever recovered in Angola and the biggest ever found by an Australian company.
It also holds a 70% interest in the Lesotho-based Mothae project, located within 5 km of Gem Diamonds’ (LON:GEMD) Letšeng mine, which in February yielded a 910-carat rock, the fifth biggest gem-quality diamond ever found.
Angola is the world’s No.4 diamond producer by value and No.6 by volume. Its industry, which began a century ago under Portuguese colonial rule, is successfully emerging from a long period of difficulty as a result of a civil war that ended in 2002.