Petra’s 24.18 ct Cullinan Dream sells for $25.37m

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The 24.18 ct Cullinan Dream fancy intense blue diamond has sold for $25.37-million at auction.

The diamond, which was auctioned off by Christie’s, in New York, on Thursday, had been expected to sell for between $23-million and $29-million.

Petra would receive 15% of the proceeds from the sale of the Cullinan Dream.

The diamond was cut from a larger 122.52 ct diamond discovered at Petra’s Cullinan mine, in South Africa, in June 2014.

The 122.52 ct rough diamond, which Petra sold into a cutting and polishing partnership for $23.5-million in September 2014, had resulted in four polished blue diamonds of notable size – the 24.18 ct cut-cornered rectangular mixed-cut Cullinan Dream; an 11.3 ct pear-shaped diamond; a 10.3 ct radiant-cut diamond and a 7 ct cushion-cut diamond.

The world’s largest rough gem diamond ever recovered – the 3 106 ct Cullinan diamond – was recovered from the Cullinan mine.

Since Petra acquired the mine in 2008, it has recovered a number of other large blue diamonds, including the 12.03 ct Blue Moon of Josephine, which was sold for $48.5-million; a 25.5 ct rough diamond sold for $16.9-million; and the 7.03 ct Star of Josephine that was sold for $9.49-million.

Christie’s in May sold the 14.62 ct rectangular Oppenheimer Blue diamond for about $57.6-million.

Another notable diamond sale in May was the 812.77 ct The Constellation rough diamond, recovered at Lucara Diamonds’ Karowe mine, in Botswana, which sold for $63.11-million.

Auction house Sotheby’s would on June 29 sell the 1 109 ct Lesedi La Rona diamond, also recovered at the Karowe mine, for an estimated $70-million.