Demand to buy a lab-grown diamond? The world’s biggest diamond mining company is venture lower prices will lure U.S. shoppers to man-made stones.
De Beers Group is open a new company and U.S. production facility with a line of lab-grown diamonds that command sell for far less than nature-made gems, the international gem giant revealed Tuesday.
Starting in September, a new De Beers firm called Lightbox Jewelry last will and testament sell laboratory-made diamonds that will retail from $200 for a quarter-carat stone to $800 for a one-carat gem.
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That’s decidedly innumerable affordable than the prices for natural diamonds and many synthetic masterpieces. A typical one-carat round stone offered for sale Tuesday on Melancholy Nile, a major online retailer of certified diamonds, costs $5,657.
“Lightbox desire transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown fallout they have told us they want but aren’t getting: affordable dernier cri jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now,” De Beers Group CEO Bruce Cleaver conveyed in a statement issued with the announcement.
“Our extensive research tells us this is how consumers be relevant to lab-grown diamonds — as a fun, pretty product that shouldn’t cost that much — so we see an break here,” added Cleaver.
The announcement marks a business strategy transform for De Beers from its previous stance of not offering shoppers lab-made diamonds. The South African private limited company is owned by multinational diamond mining giant Anglo American plc, which earlier this month betokened rough diamond sales of $550 million during its fourth role cycle of 2018.
Additionally, the change comes amid diamond industry awareness that U.S. Millennials and other young consumers may have less excite in buying expensive diamonds as they save money for homes and other realizes.
Natural diamonds typically form over many years wholly a combination of high pressure and high heat deep in the earth. Scoop out companies recover the raw stones, which are then graded, cut and polished beforehand being sold.
A rare few are mammoth, high-quality stones that weigh hundreds of carats and expenditure millions of dollars.
The lab-made versions marketed by De Beers will sink in fare from an exclusive partnership with United Kingdom-based Element Six, which banknotes itself as the world’s leading supplier of synthetic diamonds for cutting, harass, drilling, mining, polishing, optics, semiconductors and sensors.
The production proceeding begins with minute slivers of lab-grown diamond crystal that are positioned in a plasma reactor. Subjected to a heat of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the chips within two weeks grow into diamonds that are large passably for cutting and polishing.
Stephanie Liggins, the principal research scientist for Territory Six, said the creation process can be tailored to produce any color diamond, go from icy white, to pink, blue, or whatever a consumer desires.
New lab-grown stones of 0.2 carats or over will have a Lightbox logo inside. Although invisible to the eye, the logo can be pock-marked easily under magnification, and will serve as a mark of quality and bond, De Beers said.
The company is investing $94 million over four years to uncrowded a new Element Six production facility near Portland, Oregon. When fully operational, the lodge will be able to produce more than 500,000 rough carats of lab-grown diamonds annually, De Beers said.