London — Gem Diamonds discovered two diamonds bigger than 100 carats at its Lesotho mine in Southern Africa, bringing the struggling miner a step closer to ending a drought of large stones. Gem unearthed a 104.73 carat D colour Type IIa diamond and a 151.52 carat Type I yellow diamond at its Letseng mine, the company said in a statement on Monday. Type IIa diamonds contain very little or no nitrogen atoms and are the most expensive stones. Until now Gem had reported just one large discovery in 2017, after unearthing a 114 carat diamond in April. Letseng is renowned for the size and quality of its stones, with an average sales price of almost $2,000 a carat, the highest in the industry. Yet the company has suffered recently from a lack of big finds and discovered just five stones bigger than 100 carats in 2016, fewer than half as many as it found in 2015. Gem gained 2.2% to 93.5 pence a share at 10.17am on Monday, paring this year’s decline to 15%. Gem, which fell to a record low in ...
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