Stornoway Diamond Corp., has unearthed a 9.78-carat stone, one of the most valuable ever discovered at the Renard Diamond Project in Northern Quebec.
The unbroken white octahedral gem was discovered during ongoing processing of the Renard 65 bulk sample at the company’s North Vancouver diamond recovery facility.
Preliminary valuation puts the diamond at $7000 per carat. The next largest stone in the sample is 6.41 carats and also a white octahedral gem, with a preliminary valuation of $4700 per carat.
“Our expectation for the Renard 65 bulk sample was that, as with the other Renard kimberlites, we would have recovered a number of high-quality large stones given the size of the sample and its likely diamond size distribution,” said Matt Manson, Stornoway’s president and chief executive officer (CEO). “To have obtained two such large diamonds so early on, both of exceptional quality, is highly encouraging.”
Eleven diamonds larger than 1.8 carats in size have been extracted from the Renard 65 bulk sample.
