Is The Lab-Grown Diamond Era Over?Diamonds giant De Beers Group recently announced the closure of its lab grown diamonds line. Is it a signal of a move back towards natural diamonds? – by Shreya Choudhuri (NDTV Lifestyle – June 13, 2025)

https://www.ndtv.com/

Are diamonds really forever? South African and British diamonds corporation, De Beers Group announced its decision to close its lab-grown diamonds (LGD) brand, Lightbox in May 2025. This has led to a shift of focus back to the OG natural diamonds within the industry and consumers. While a girl’s got to know all about her diamonds, but if you are living under a rock, LGDs are chemically produced diamonds that look just like naturally mined diamonds but cost a fraction of the latter.

According to Statista (Statista is a global data and business intelligence platform that specialises in compiling, gathering and visualising statistics and market research data), this move by De Beers is in sharp contrast to the lab-grown diamonds industry steadily growing over the past decade. However, in a statement released in their official website the company highlighted that Lightbox’s LGD’s have seen a fall in prices by 90 per cent at wholesale, since the brand’s inception back in 2018.

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Lab-Grown Diamonds are Upending the Market, but Natural Gems Still Reign in Beverly Hills – by Clara Harter (Beverly Hills Courier – June 10, 2025)

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Lab-grown diamonds, once dismissed as subpar yellowish stones, are now practically impossible to distinguish from their natural counterparts by look alone. And as more buyers are drawn to their affordability and eco-conscious appeal, synthetic stones are upending a market long defined by tradition and exclusivity.

Last year, 52% of American newlyweds used an engagement ring with a lab-grown stone compared to just 12% in 2019, according to an annual survey by The Knot. This boom in popularity has hit the natural diamond market hard. The price of mined stones has dropped around 26% since 2022, according to jewelry data analytics firm Tenoris. In 2024, De Beers, the biggest name in the natural diamond business, reported a 23% year-over-year decrease in revenue driven by a loss in demand for mined stones.

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The Brilliance of Botswana Diamonds – by Shelley Brown (Natural Diamonds – May 29, 2025)

https://www.naturaldiamonds.com/

Discover how the natural diamond industry helped transform the now thriving Southern African country with brilliant Botswana diamonds.

Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is both the birthplace of modern humans over 200,000 years ago and brilliant diamonds billions of years before that. The discovery of the first significant deposit of diamonds in Botswana happened in 1967, just one year after the country gained independence from Britain.

At that time, it was the third poorest country in the world, with minimal infrastructure and an almost total void of formal education. The country’s founding president, Sir Seretse Khama, made it his mission to build a government with an ambitious economic development program centered around the country’s resources.

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Would You Buy Your Diamond Engagement Ring at Walmart? – by Elizabeth Paton (New York Times – May 8, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

The popularity of synthetic stones has sent the market for natural diamonds crashing. With consumers confused about how to tell the difference, how can a market leader like De Beers regain its sparkle?

Do you care where a diamond comes from? Historically, consumers didn’t have a choice. Natural diamonds were formed billions of years ago, deep beneath the earth’s surface, and were then thrust hundreds of kilometers to its crust by volcanic eruptions before eventually being extracted from mines in South Africa, Russia and elsewhere.

Companies like De Beers convinced the world that a diamond is forever, made the stones synonymous with engagement rings and encouraged people to spend at least three months’ salary on a rock when they wed. But in recent years, the natural diamond industry has been upended by laboratory-grown diamonds, which are virtually identical in chemical composition to their natural counterparts (at least to the naked eye).

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Diamond mining industry cracks under pressure – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 28, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

The global diamond industry is undergoing a rapid and unprecedented collapse, according to tech entrepreneur and academic Leanne Kemp, though some industry analysts argue that while the downturn is severe, it is not terminal.

Plunging revenues, halted operations and growing doubts about diamonds’ cultural and economic relevance are just some of the symptoms cited by Kemp, who insists the industry isn’t just slumping. She said it’s “disassembling”.

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De Beers to Cut over 1,000 Jobs at Debswana Unit – by Leah Meirovich (Rapaport Magazine – May 26, 2025)

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Botswana President Duma Boko has announced plans for the termination of over 1,000 workers at Debswana, the government’s joint venture with De Beers.

Boko made the declaration at a recent address to civil servants. He said the ongoing downturn in the diamond market motivated the layoffs, a move the Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) condemned, according to a statement it released recently.

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Indigenous development corps. will be hit hard by N.W.T. diamond mine closures, report says – by Nadeer Hashmi (CBC News North – May 21, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Analysis finds diamond industry generated $104M for 3 Indigenous development corporations in 2023

With the N.W.T.’s diamond mines facing an uncertain future, some Indigenous businesses are warning of the impact the mines’ closures could have on local communities.

Diamond mining brought in over $104 million in revenue to three N.W.T. Indigenous development corporations and created 355 jobs for local Indigenous people in 2023, according to a new report analyzing the impact of the diamond mines.

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Kimberley Process Makes Headway in Expanding ‘Conflict Diamond’ Definition – by Leah Meirovich (Rapaport Magazine – May 18, 2025)

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After years of fighting for a broader definition of the term “conflict diamond,” the World Diamond Council (WDC) says it finally has new wording it believes will attract a consensus. The current definition refers only to diamonds used to fund rebel groups, which critics have argued doesn’t reflect the present situation.

Over the years, Kimberley Process (KP) member countries have suggested new descriptions that would also include references to “systemic and widespread violence,” “forced labor,” “child labor” and “human rights abuses.”

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Burgundy Goes All In on Downstream Deals, Closes Manufacturing Business – by Leah Meirovich (Rapaport Magazine – May 14, 2025)

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Burgundy Diamond Mines will work directly with manufacturers, traders, jewelers and luxury brands to make direct deals for the sale of rough diamonds from its Ekati mine in Canada.

The collaborations are a way for the miner to maximize the value of its diamonds, it said Tuesday. It will also allow the company and its partners to have full traceability on its goods from mine to market, it explained.

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State of Diamonds: What’s Next for Lab-Grown Diamonds? – by Avi Krawitz (National Jeweler – May 14, 2025)

https://nationaljeweler.com/

While the product has entrenched itself in the market, retailers and consultants are assessing the next phase of the category’s development.

Being late to the party can be an advantage, says Constance Polamalu while relating her journey on the road to selling lab-grown diamonds. As chief operating officer of Zachary’s Jewelers in Annapolis, Maryland, Polamalu took time during the pandemic to assess opportunities in the lab-grown market.

“Our area tends to be a bit delayed in following trends and there wasn’t a big advocate for lab grown here at the time, but it was looming,” she recalls.

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‘Diamonds are forever,’ but not necessarily so for northern mining industry – by Aya Dufour (CBC News Sudbury – May 13, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

DeBeers renews focus on natural diamonds after closing lab-grown business

DeBeers recently renewed its focus on natural diamonds after experimenting with lab-grown ones. But that probably won’t be enough to revive diamond mining in northern Ontario, according to some working in the sector.

In a news release last week, the mining giant pointed to a sharp decline in prices for lab-grown diamonds and said that trend underpinned the company’s “core belief in rare, high value and natural diamond jewelry.” DeBeers started its lab-grown diamond business around the same time it closed its only diamond project in Ontario — the Victor Mine near Attawapiskat First Nation in the province’s far north.

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WDC Appeals to US Govt to Exempt Diamonds from Tariffs – by Leah Meirovich (Rapaport Maagazine – May 5, 2025)

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The World Diamond Council (WDC) is calling on the US government to provide a dispensation for the diamond industry when implementing tariffs, noting the levies would put more than 200,000 jobs at risk.

While the council — which represents the international natural-diamond value chain — acknowledged the government’s stance on fair and reciprocal trade, it emphasized that diamonds are not produced in the US but are “vital to the health of the American jewelry industry,” the WDC said Monday. It also pointed out they were an essential contributor to the national economy.

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The Search for Golconda – by Stellene Volandes (Town and Country – December 12, 2012)

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/

A mysterious mine somewhere in India once produced the world’s most magnificent diamonds — the stones Napoleon, English monarchs, and Mughal emperors fought to own. Now they’re causing a new uproar — and setting record prices.

For his first day at Harry Winston, in January 2010, Frédéric de Narp, the company’s contagiously enthusiastic president and CEO, had one request: He wanted to hold the Hope diamond. The 110-carat blue stone, first sold to Louis XIV in 1668, was stolen from the French court jewels during the looting of the Treasury, in 1792.

In 1812 it mysteriously reappeared, in the hands of a London diamond merchant, and in 1946, Winston himself acquired it as part of the jewelry collection of Evalyn Walsh McLean, wife of the owner of the Washington Post. (The couple had bought it in 1911 for a reported $300,000.) Winston donated it to the Smithsonian Institution.

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N.W.T. government announces tax break, funding for ailing diamond mines (CBC News North – April 22, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/

Measures include ramping up local diamond valuations, temporary property tax relief

The Northwest Territories government has announced several new policies aimed at propping up the territory’s diamond mines. The targeted measures are aimed to provide financial relief to diamond mines while low diamond prices, supply chain disruptions and potential U.S. tariffs wreak havoc on the industry.

Mining is the largest private-sector contributor to the N.W.T.’s economy, with the N.W.T. government saying its three operating diamond mines collectively account for about 20 per cent of the territory’s GDP. All three N.W.T. diamond mines reported losses in 2024, and mining companies called for government support earlier this month.

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Diamond industry in crisis as Trump tariffs rock market – by Leslie Hook (Financial Times/Financial Post – April 15, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

Traders warn of ‘standstill’ as shipments through Antwerp drop 85%

Diamond traders are warning that the US$82-billion industry has “ground to a halt” because of Donald Trump‘s tariffs and the global trade war, with shipments through the gem-trading hub of Antwerp down to about one-seventh of usual levels.

Trump’s sweeping tariffs include a 10 per cent levy on diamond imports as well as proposed variable “retaliatory” duties by country of origin, even though many other minerals, such as gold and copper, are excluded from the measures.

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