President Mokgweetsi Masisi basked in a moment of triumph on 22 August, as he unveiled the largest diamond discovered anywhere in the world for more than a century to an excited crowd of journalists and officials in Gaborone. What?! he exclaimed, his eyes popping with delight as he felt the weight of the stone. I am lucky to have seen it in my time.
The presentation of the second-largest diamond ever wrenched from the Earth appears to be the latest glittering chapter in Botswanas success story. The stone, extracted from the Karowe mine by Canadian company Lucara, provides seemingly irrefutable evidence that the southern African nation remains a diamond superpower.
We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond, said William Lamb, president and CEO of Lucara in a statement. This discovery reinforces Karowes position as a truly world-class diamond mine.
Lambs ecstasy is unsurprising, given that the stone is thought to be worth more than $40m. His joy must have increased further when the company announced another find, weighing in at 1,094 carats, just weeks later. Lucara recovered these diamonds through x-ray transmission technology that it installed at Karowe in 2017. Diamondiferous ore is scanned before it goes through the mechanical crushing process, enabling the company to identify and preserve exceptionally large stones.
Competition from the labsBut the long-term outlook for the industry in Botswana looks less rosy. Even the recent discovery of such enormous riches cannot disguise the fact that Botswanas diamond mining industry is facing serious headwinds.
