X-ray technology used to discover the 2,492-carat stone at the Karowe diamond mine in the African country.
A 2,492-carat diamond – the second largest in the world – has been discovered in Botswana, according to the Canadian mining company that found it.
Lucara Diamonds said in a statement on Thursday that the diamond was discovered using X-ray technology at the Karowe diamond mine in northeastern Botswana.
Lucara did not comment on the value or quality of the find, but in terms of carat weight, it is second only to the 3,016-carat Cullinan diamond, discovered in South Africa in 1905.
“We are thrilled to recover this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara president William Lamb said in a statement.
Photos released by the company show the diamond to be about the size of a palm.
The discovery, “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed,” was detected using the company's Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology, introduced in 2017 to identify and preserve large, valuable diamonds, the statement said.
Botswana's President Mokgwetsi Masisi viewed the giant stone late on Thursday, and the government said it was the second largest in the world.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi holds up the diamond in his office in Gaborone (Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP)
Tobias Komind, president of 77 Diamonds, Europe's largest online diamond jeweller, confirmed that the stone is the largest rough diamond ever unearthed since the Cullinan diamond, which forms part of the British Crown Jewels.
“This discovery is thanks to new technology that allows us to extract larger diamonds from the ground without breaking them up, so there is a good chance we will continue to discover more about where these diamonds came from,” he said.
Botswana is one of the world's largest diamond producers and diamonds are the country's main source of income, accounting for 30% of its gross domestic product and 80% of its exports.
The South African country proposed legislation last month that would require mining companies to sell a 24 percent stake in their mines to local investors after granting them a licence, unless the government exercises its option to acquire shares.
Prior to Thursday's announcement, the largest diamond ever found in Botswana was a 1,758-carat stone named “Sewello” that was mined by Lucara at its Karowe mine in 2019.
In 2021, Lucara used the same X-ray technology to discover a 1,174-carat diamond in Botswana.
