Petra Diamonds Sells Five Blue Rough Diamonds For A Cheap Price, Right!

Petra Diamonds just announced that its Letlapa Tala Collection consisting of five Blue rough diamonds has been sold to a partnership between De Beers and Diacore for a total of $40.36 million. The total weight is 85.6 carats so the average price paid per carat is $471.5k per carat. 

This is not a record price but based on a loss of 50-65% of weight, the after polishing total weight should be between 30 carats and 42.8 carats. The new cost per carat will be between $ 943k to $1.347 million. This is a pretty high cost and if the 5 Blue rough diamonds do not yield Fancy Vivid Blue diamonds, this will be an expensive loss. 

Even if we assume an optimistic loss of weight of only 35-45%, this means that the final, after polishing weight would be between 47.08 carats and 55.64 carats. This translates into a final per carat cost of $725k to $857k per carat. Even in this scenario, they all better be a strong Fancy Intense Blue diamond with Flawless clarity or Fancy Vivid Blue diamonds based on current market prices.

It will also be interesting to see what the partners will end up doing with the polished diamonds. Will they sell them each separately, or create a higher valued piece of jewelry with all 5 of them included. Only time will tell, and I hope that De Beers and Diacore will make it publicly known.

I also wonder if the same partnership acquired the 20.08 carat last year and if they will share with us the outcome.