Lucara Recovers 472 Carat Diamond, 3rd Largest Ever for Karowe

Lucara Diamond Corp. yesterday announced the recovery of a 472 carat, top light brown gem diamond, the third largest diamond ever recovered from its 100 per cent owned Karowe Diamond Mine located in Botswana.

CEO, Eira Thomas comments, “In 2018, mining at Karowe is focused in the high value south lobe, which consistently delivers large, high quality diamonds in excess of 10.8 carats in size.  The 472 carat is the third largest diamond ever recovered from the mine and will be sold alongside other exceptional stones recovered since the beginning of the year as part of the first exceptional stone tender (EST) later in 2018.”

Year to date Production Highlights

218 specials (diamonds >10.8 carats) recovered in Q1, the 3rd highest quarterly count on record including:

• ° 4 stones greater than 100 carats each
• ° At least 8 EST qualifying diamonds

First regular stone tender (RST) completed in March and will be reported as part of the Q1 results on May 8, 2018

Lucara continues to focus on maximizing value at Karowe, where a pre-feasibility study assessing the potential for going underground and extending mine-life from 2026 to 2036 is well underway and progressing on schedule for completion towards year-end.

In February 2018, Lucara also announced the acquisition of Clara, a secure, digital, rough diamond sales platform that combines proprietary analytics with existing cloud and blockchain technologies to modernize the current diamond supply chain.  Commercialization work has since commenced, under a budget of approximately US$2 million, and is tracking on schedule for implementation using diamonds from Karowe, beginning in August 2018.