Russia holds about half of world’s diamond reserves — expert

Detailed summary

Pavel Petrov, a senior consultant at S+Consulting, added that Botswana with 631 million carats rates second, and Angola with 579 million carats third

MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. Global diamond reserves exceed 2 billion carats with about half of them - around 1 billion carats - located in Russia, Pavel Petrov, a senior consultant at S+Consulting, told TASS.

According to Petrov, Botswana with 631 million carats rates second, Angola with 579 million carats third and Canada with 235 million carats fourth.

Maxim Shaposhnikov, an adviser to the managing director of the Industrial Code fund, said that there is no scientifically grounded assessment of the reserves of blue diamonds in Russia and the world. They account for less than 0.02% of the total volume of finds, and the main modern source of such stones of type IIb is the South African Cullinan mine.

Shaposhnikov also said that, at the current mining rate of about 30 million carats per year, the country’s static reserve amounts to about 25 years.

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