The fresh find is described as a clivage gem of variable quality with significant domains of high-quality white gem material.
During an 11-day production run in June of EM/PK(S) unit of the South Lobe, which sourced the newest stone, several other high quality white gems were also recovered. Those include five diamonds weighing 148 carat, 90 carat, 88 carat, 86 carat and 67 carat respectively.
President and chief executive, Eira Thomas, said that finding another “historic” diamond was a world record for Karowe.
“Although complex, these diamond recoveries do contain large domains of top colour white gem that will be transformed through our partnership with HB Antwerp into valuable collections of top colour polished diamonds, very much in high demand in the market today,” she said in the statement.
Year to date, Karowe has produced 17 diamonds greater than 100 carats, including five over 300 carats, Thomas noted.
The government of Botswana, Africa’s largest producer of diamonds, announced last week that its joint venture with De Beers had found a 1,098-carat stone, the biggest Debswana has ever recovered since it began operations five decades ago.
