Diamonds are forever

JOHANNESBURG: Diamonds produced in alaboratory — cheaper and in a myriad of cools — should not be seenas a threat by industry giant De Beers since they will largely fill a separateniche, a group promoting the gems said. De Beers, the world’s biggestdiamond producer with around half the market, has called man-made diamonds oneof the greatest risks the $50-bn sector will face in comingyears.

“They’ve overreacted to a huge extent as withcultured pearls I believe this is going to enhance the diamond industry,”Roger Lappeman, chairman of the newly launched Cultured Diamond Foundation, saidin an interview on Tuesday. Mr Lappeman, who runs a diamond polishing firm andused to be one of De Beers’ biggest clients in South Africa — saideach diamond produced in laboratories will be clearly marked assuch.

In addition, the bulk of man-made diamonds are colouredvarieties, which are very rare in nature. Natural coloured stones are also onlyaffordable by the wealthy. A one-carat deep yellow natural diamond would costaround $30,000 and a pink variety as much as $500,000 while one produced in alaboratory would cost only $5,000.

The Johannesburg-based foundationhopes to help carve out a new market in more affordable coloured diamonds,taking market share from other gems like deep-blue Tanzanite. “Instead ofallowing other precious stones, coloured stones, to take away from the diamondmarket, we are going to allow diamond lovers to grow that market,” saidfoundation executive director Mike Goch, who also runs a gem distributionfirm.

So far only US-firm Gemesis has been producing man-madediamonds on a commercial basis while another US-company, Apollo, is perfectingits product and is due to soon follow suit. Gemesis is producing around 30,000carats a year, a drop in the ocean compared with the 100m carats of gem-qualitydiamonds mined each year.

The process of making diamonds in alaboratory is relatively slow — taking around four days for each gem— so meeting demand may be a problem, said Lappeman and Goch, who arerolling out a line of laboratory-made diamonds to jewellery shops this month inSouth Africa.It will likely take between 10 and 15 years for man-made diamondsto take a small percentage of the diamond market, Lappeman added.

They rejected criticism by De Beers, 45 percent owned by mininggroup Anglo American Plc , and others in the established diamondindustry about their use of the term “cultured diamonds”. De Beersprefers the term “synthetic diamond”, saying “cultured”misleads the consumer.

“Certainly we believe they are trying touse terminology that demeans the product. People when they hear that termsynthetic immediately think of something that is not real, which is not thecase,” Goch said.

Laboratory-made diamonds — virtuallyindistinguishable from natural gems — are created in the same way as thosethat are mined, they said.

The same material, carbon, is subjected toextreme temperature and pressure similar to what occurred 100 miles below theearth’s surface millions of years ago.

Gemesis and otherdiamond makers use a diamond “seed”, on which carbon atoms aredeposited under temperatures as high as 1,500 degrees centigrade and pressure ofup to 28,000 atmospheres.

The foundation says it wants consumers toknow they are purchasing a laboratory-made product and therefore inscribes itslogo and an identification number on the girdle of each diamond itcertifies.

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“We consider ourselves to be as part of the diamondindustry. We do not want these stones to be misrepresented,” Gochsaid.