A small mining agency simply noticed its inventory surge 91% after it found the world’s 2nd-largest diamond

• Shares of Lucara Diamond Corp. surged 91% Thursday after it found a 2,492-carat diamond.

• The diamond, discovered on the Karowe mine in Botswana, is the world’s second-largest ever.

• Lucara’s market worth rose by simply over $40 million on Thursday following the announcement.

Shares of Lucara Diamond Corp. soared as a lot as 91% on Thursday after the Canadian mining agency announced it had discovered an enormous 2,492-carat diamond.

The diamond, which weighs a couple of pound and is in regards to the dimension of a baseball, was found at Lucara’s Karowe mine in Botswana.

That makes it the world’s second-largest diamond ever found.

The uncut diamond is simply over 600 carats smaller than the Cullinan diamond, found in South Africa in 1905.

Shares of Lucara traded on the Toronto Inventory Change at a excessive of $0.63 on Thursday, practically double their closing value on Wednesday. The inventory has since pared its positive factors in afternoon buying and selling to 33%.

Whereas the tough diamond has but to be completely assessed and appraised, it’s anticipated to be value tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} — and it could possibly be value muhc extra whether it is thought-about a gem-quality rock.

In 2015, Lucara found a 1,109-carat gem-quality diamond on the similar mine. The stone offered for $53 million.

Lucara’s market valuation soared by simply over $40 million on Thursday to just about $150 million, in response to knowledge from YCharts.

What is exclusive about Lucara’s discover is that the diamond was found through X-ray expertise.

The diamond “was detected and recovered by the Firm’s Mega Diamond Restoration X-ray Transmission expertise, put in in 2017 to determine and protect giant, high-value diamonds,” Lucara stated in a press launch.

“This discover not solely showcases the outstanding potential of our Karowe Mine, but additionally upholds our strategic funding in cutting-edge XRT expertise,” Lucara CEO William Lamb stated.

Diamond miners have confronted numerous challenges lately, from declining costs resulting from the rise of lab-grown diamonds to the underlying problem of finding and extracting fragile gems with out breaking them.

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