Lulo Rose: 170 carat pink diamond set to smash records

By Emma Martin

Angolan miners have unearthed what experts believe to be the largest pink diamond discovered in over 300 years. Named after the mine in which it was found, the Lulo Rose weighs in at 170 carats. Adding to the excitement around the stone is the fact that it is a rare type IIa diamond, meaning that it has few to no impurities.

Natural pink diamonds are incredibly rare, with top quality stones fetching more than $1 million per carat at auction. The Lulo Rose has yet to be cut and polished, a process that can take years and result in a stone losing up to half of its weight. This makes its value hard to ascertain, but we can look to the past to get an idea of the market for the best quality pink diamonds.

In 2017, the 59.60 carat Pink Star was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong for an astounding $71.2 million, the world record for any diamond sold at auction. It is the largest pink diamond ever to be graded by the Gemological Institute of America as internally flawless vivid pink. Mined in South Africa in 1999, the 132.50 carat rough stone had taken two years to cut and polish into the spectacular oval Pink Star.

Most coloured diamonds get their hues from trace elements mixing with carbon atoms at the time of their formation – nitrogen in the case of yellow diamonds, boron for blue. Pink diamonds are different in that 99.5% of them contain no trace elements. Rather, they are subject to a process called plastic deformation which occurs after their creation.

Extreme heat and pressure from all directions cause distortions in the stone’s crystal lattice which results in carbon atoms being moved from their original positions. This alters the way in which the stone reflects light and this new molecular configuration means that we see the diamond as pink.

Pink diamonds were first discovered in the famed Golconda diamond mines of India. The Great Table diamond was a rough stone believed to have weighed well over 250 carats and adorned the legendary Peacock Throne of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. It was plundered in 1739 by the Persian ruler Nader Shah and disappeared a few years later.

The approximately 182 carat Daria-iNoor (Sea of Light) is the largest cut pink diamond in the world. It now forms a part of the Iranian state jewels along with its smaller sister, the roughly 60 carat Noor-ul-Ain. Their origin is the subject of debate, with some researchers claiming that these two stones were actually cut from the Great Table diamond.

Pink diamonds have also been discovered in Brazil, Canada, Tanzania, Russia and South Africa. It is Australia though, specifically the Argyle mine in Kimberley, Western Australia that is most associated with these stones. Until its closure in November 2020 it was responsible for around 90% of the world’s pink diamonds.

To get an idea of the stone’s rarity, one need only look at the Argyle mine’s results: of their 20 million carat annual production, less than 1% were pink diamonds and only a very small proportion of those were a rich, vivid colour. What’s more, the largest pink diamond found at the Argyle mine was only 12.76 carats.

The Angolan government declared the discovery of the Lulo Rose to be ‘historic’, with the minister of mineral resources, petroleum and gas, Diamontino Azevedo, stating:

“The record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage for diamond mining”

The southern African country is one of the world’s top ten sources of diamonds and the Lulo alluvial mine, in the northern region of Lunda Norte, has a history of producing exceptional stones. Previous discoveries include an enormous 404.20 carat colourless diamond, one of 27 diamonds weighing over 100 carats that have emerged from the mine.

The mine is owned by Australian company Lucapa, in partnership with the state-run mining firm Endiama and Rosas & Petalas, a private Angolan company. It is expected the Angolan state-owned diamond trading company, Sodiam, will be responsible for the sale of the stone. ■