Petra Diamonds Ltd has sold a 4.8 carat blue diamond from its Cullinan mine in South Africa for $1.45 million. At roughly $300,000 per carat, it’s purportedly the highest price ever received per carat for a rough diamond.

“Cullinan is renowned as the world's only reliable source of blue diamonds and this sale demonstrates how rare and desirable they are to the international market,” said Petra.

Cullinan, which was acquired by Petra Diamonds from DeBeers, is considered to be the world's only reputable source of highly valuable and rare blue diamonds. Only one or two blue diamonds are found each year out of millions of tons mined.  A number of stones in the British Crown jewels originate from Cullinan. These include the Cullinan 1 and the Lesser Star of Africa, which are found in the Imperial State Crown, and the Star of Africa, which is found in the scepter.

Petra’s annual production, revenues, and profits have risen over the past few years, giving it one of the world’s largest diamond resources. Cullinan is one of five mines that Petra has acquired from De Beers since 2007.

"Over the last few years, Petra's rapid development has seen the Company grow to become London's largest quoted diamond mining group. We have compiled a world class portfolio of long life assets, which produce some of the world's most spectacular diamonds, as evidenced by the sale of the Cullinan blue for over $300,000 per carat…” said Adonis Pouroulis, Chairman of Petra.

Petra  currently produces about 1.1 million carats annually and plans on increasing its  annual production to over 5 million carats by 2019.

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