A huge 391.45-carat Type IIa diamond has been recovered at the Meya Mine, in Sierra Leone.
Mining bosses are delighted with the stone, the second biggest in the deposit’s history.
But were disappointed to discover it was part of an even larger stone, weighing 514.99 carats that broke into three pieces (the others were105.43 carat and 18.11 carat).
“Our priority now is to ensure that going forward we can recover these high value stones intact,” said Jan Joubert, CEO of Meya Mining, which operates the mine, in Kono District, in the east of the country.
“We will work closely with our engineering and processing partners to upgrade the plant, eliminate breakages and increase its capacity to recover exceptionally large diamonds”.
In November 2017, the company recovered a 523.44-carat Type IIa diamond, that was also broken into three pieces (476.98 carat, 27.89 carat and 18.58 carat).
Julius Daniel Mattai, Sierra Leone’s minister of mines and mineral resources, said he hoped the recovery would “once again alert the world to Sierra Leone’s mineral resource potential and engender a renewed interest in investing in the country’s mining sector”.
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