Recovery of an exceptional 29.6 carat blue diamond

RNS Number : 0917Y

Petra Diamonds Limited

21 January 2014

 

21 January 2014

LSE: PDL

 

Petra Diamonds Limited

("Petra" or the "Company" or the "Group")

Recovery of an exceptional 29.6 carat blue diamond

Petra Diamonds Limited announces the recovery of an exceptional 29.6 carat blue diamond at the Cullinan mine in South Africa.

The stone is an outstanding vivid blue with extraordinary saturation, tone and clarity, and has the potential to yield a polished stone of great value and importance.

Blue diamonds are among the rarest and most highly coveted of all diamonds and the Cullinan mine is the most important source of blues in the world. This stone is one of the most exceptional stones recovered at Cullinan during Petra's operation of the mine.

Photos of the 29.6 carat blue can be viewed at the Company's website: www.petradiamonds.comand www.petradiamonds.com/media/image-library/diamonds. 

For further information, please contact:

Petra Diamonds (Corporate Communications)	Telephone: [phone]
Cathy Malins	[e-mail]

Buchanan (PR Adviser)	Telephone: [phone]
Bobby Morse Louise Mason Cornelia Browne	[e-mail] [e-mail] [e-mail]

RBC Capital Markets (Joint Broker)	Telephone: [phone]
Matthew Coakes Jonathan Hardy	[e-mail] [e-mail]

Canaccord Genuity Limited (Joint Broker)	Telephone: [phone]
Ryan Gaffney	[e-mail]
Chris Fincken	[e-mail]

About Petra Diamonds Limited

Petra Diamonds is a leading independent diamond mining group and an increasingly important supplier of rough diamonds to the international market. The Company has interests in six producing mines: five in South Africa (Finsch, Cullinan, Koffiefontein, Kimberley Underground and Helam) and one in Tanzania (Williamson). It also maintains an exploration programme in Botswana.

Petra offers an exceptional growth profile, with a core objective to steadily increase annual production to 5 million carats by FY 2019. The Group has a major resource base in excess of 300 million carats.

Petra conducts all operations according to the highest ethical standards and will only operate in countries which are members of the Kimberley Process. Petra is quoted with a premium listing on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker 'PDL' and is a member of the FTSE 250.

For more information, visit the Company's website at www.petradiamonds.com.

About the Cullinan mine

Located at the foothills of the Magaliesberg mountain range, 37 kilometres north-east of Pretoria in South Africa, Cullinan is one of the world's most celebrated diamond mines.

It earned its place in history with the discovery of the Cullinan diamond in 1905, the largest rough gem diamond ever found at 3,106 carats. This iconic stone was cut into the two most important diamonds which form part of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London - the First Star of Africa, which is mounted at the top of the Sovereign's Sceptre and which at 530 carats is the largest flawless cut diamond in the world, and the Second Star of Africa, a 317 carat polished diamond which forms the centrepiece of the Imperial State Crown.

Cullinan is renowned as a source of large diamonds and frequently yields diamonds larger than 10 carats.  Furthermore, it has produced over 750 stones weighing more than 100 carats, 130 stones weighing more than 200 carats, and around a quarter of all diamonds weighing more than 400 carats.

Cullinan is also renowned as the world's most important source of blue diamonds, providing the collection of 11 rare blues displayed in 2000 at London's Millennium Dome alongside the Millennium Star and which included the fancy vivid blue 'Heart of Eternity' (27 carats polished).

Since Petra acquired the mine in 2008, it has produced the following important blue diamonds:

·     A 39.9 carat diamond which sold for US$8.8 million in 2008.

·     A 26.6 carat diamond which yielded a fancy vivid blue and internally flawless 7.0 carat polished stone. Sold for US$9.49 million (or US$1.35 million per carat) at a Sotheby's auction in 2009, at the time this was the highest price per carat for any gemstone sold at auction and the highest price for a fancy vivid blue diamond sold at auction. It was subsequently named the 'Star of Josephine' by its new owner.

·     A 4.8 carat diamond which sold for US$1.45 million in 2012.

·     A 25.5 carat diamond which sold for US$16.9 million in 2013.

Other notable diamonds historically produced from Cullinan include the Premier Rose (353 carats rough), the Niarchos (426 carats rough), the De Beers Centenary (599 carats rough), the Golden Jubilee (755 carats rough) and the famous Taylor-Burton diamond (69 carats polished).  More recently, the Cullinan Heritage (507 carats rough) was recovered by Petra and sold for US$35.3 million in February 2010, being the highest price on record for a rough diamond.

 

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