The major is also looking to collect a portion of the $52 million it has already spent at the project.

Unidentified stones that lured thousands of fortune seekers to a rural South African village to mine the land with picks and shovels were not diamonds as hoped, officials said on Sunday.

The mines department said it was sending a team comprising of geological and mining experts to the site to collect samples and conduct an analysis.

Diamonds are a complicated business; more than almost any other resource sector, the pricing framework needed to be accurate. It wasn’t.

After a 2020 saw a near shutdown of the diamond market for half the year as a result of pandemic-related travel restrictions, diamond prices have bounced back in 2021.

It takes about three months to cut, polish and sell a diamond, so stones bought cheaply at the start of the year are now being sold for a big profit.