A 12.76 carat gem, named as the Argyle Pink Jubilee, was found at Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine in the remote east Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Diamonds in this category, said Rio Tinto regularly sell for 1 million dollars a carat.

“This diamond is one of a kind, so the market will determine its true value,” Rio Tinto Diamonds communications manager Robyn Ellison said.
“It’s taken 26 years to find one of these, so most likely we’ll never find another one.”

The gem is being cut and polished into a single stone in a painstaking 10-day process by Richard How Kim Kam, who has worked for the company for 25 years.

It will take 10 days of painstaking work to cut and polish the Argyle Pink Jubilee.

It was found at Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine in the remote east Kimberley region of Western Australia, which produces more than 90 per cent of the world’s supply of pink diamonds.

The gem is being cut and polished as a single stone by Richard How Kim Kam, who has worked cutting and polishing diamonds for the company for 25 years.

“I’m going to take it very carefully,” Mr How Kim Kam said.
“I know the world will be watching.”
Rio Tinto said pink diamonds attracted, on average, 20 times the price of an equivalent white diamond.
The finished gem will be graded by a team of international experts and shown around the world, then sold under a tender process later this year.
Argyle Pink Diamonds manager Josephine Johnson said a diamond of its calibre was unprecedented.
“It has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone and we may never see one like this again,” Ms Johnson said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 at 1:06 pm.