This diamond mine and the way it markets much of
its output represents what's an attempt to disrupt an industry
dominated by one company, De Beers. No doubt
you've heard of de Beers. It's been a giant
in the diamond industry since it was founded in South
Africa. More than a century ago, the company
sells its diamonds unprocessed in packages of a number of
varied stones on a take it or leave it basis
. Then there's a select few buyers that get the
chance to purchase them at just 10 sales a year
. But Luca Diamond Corporation is trying to change that
. They're pushing the use of a new technology that
could see more competition in the sector. So here
we just standing out the inside of the store.
Now we have reached our temperature. It's called Clara
. Larger diamonds are scanned with an X ray like
machine then matched with likely buyers depending on their requirements
. All online the diamond is then sold individually to
the highest bidder. No travel to remote locations needed
for now, Luka is mainly using gems from its
sole operation in Botswana. A country home to some
of the richest diamond mines in the world. It's
also where the number one diamond company in the world
de Beers is currently negotiating its long standing 50 year
partnership with the government. Botswana's president has praised Luca's
arrangement with the Belgian mineral company. HB Antwerp saying
the technology has quote enormous scalable potential diamonds make up
approximately 45% of Botswana's GDP. So any competition in
the space is likely to complicate those negotiations between the
government and any would be partners.