The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett has a standing invitation to visit a diamond mine in Northern Ontario. Buffett, 82, has been asked to join a junket in September, in which Crossworks Manufacturing will fly possible investors and diamond buyers to De Beers’ Victor Diamond Mine.
Victor is the first Canadian diamond mine in Ontario, and De Beers’ second Canadian diamond mine. It is located in the James Bay Lowlands, 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat, so it’s safe to say Buffett has likely never visited that region.
Buffett purchased Omahabased Borsheims, one of the largest jewelers in the United States, in 1989. It’s part of his famous holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Unfortunately, Buffett isn’t available for the trip.
But Uri Ariel, president and chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Crossworks, said the offer remains open to show Buffett around the mine that produces high-quality diamonds.
Greater Sudbury Mayor Marianne Matichuk and representatives from Asian diamond companies, such as Chow Fai Took Jewellery Group, and Asian journalists have been invited along.
Ariel and Dylan Dix of Crossworks casually unveiled Wednesday what they say is the biggest diamond to be mined, cut and polished in Canada — a 35-carat gem worth a million dollars.
The stone is being processed, in the diamond-cutting plant located in downtown Sudbury, by one of Crossworks’ most talented and trusted cutters.
Victor diamonds sell for about $2,640 a carat, and are prized for their quality and Victor Mine is possibly the best diamond mine in the world, Ariel told The Sudbury Star and Matichuk when he showed off the stone this week.
It’s not just the Crossworks executives who are proud of the stones. So is Mark Leroux, director of the diamond sector unit of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines.
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