• Shares of Lucara Diamond Corp. soared 91% on Thursday after the company discovered a 2,492-carat diamond.

• The diamond, found in the Karowe mine in Botswana, is the second largest diamond ever found.

• Lucara’s market value rose more than $40 million on Thursday following the announcement.

Shares of Lucara Diamond Corp. soared as much as 91% on Thursday after the Canadian mining company announced it had discovered a massive 2,492-carat diamond.

The diamond, which weighs about a pound and is about the size of a baseball, was discovered at Lucara’s Karowe mine in Botswana.

This makes it the second largest diamond ever discovered.

The rough diamond is just over 600 carats smaller than the Cullinan Diamond, which was discovered in South Africa in 1905.

Shares of Lucara traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange at a high of $0.63 on Thursday, nearly double Wednesday’s closing price. The stock has since pared its gains in midday trading to 33%.

Although the rough diamond has yet to be thoroughly assessed and valued, it is expected to be worth tens of millions of dollars. If it is considered a gemstone of gem quality, it could be worth much more.

In 2015, Lucara discovered a 1,109-carat gem-quality diamond at the same mine. The stone sold for $53 million.

Lucara’s market value rose more than $40 million to nearly $150 million on Thursday, according to data from YCharts.

What is unique about Lucara’s find is that the diamond was discovered using X-ray technology.

The diamond “was detected and recovered using the company’s Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray Transmission technology, which was installed in 2017 to identify and preserve large, valuable diamonds,” Lucara said in a press release.

“This discovery not only demonstrates the remarkable potential of our Karowe mine, but also confirms our strategic investment in advanced XRT technology,” said William Lamb, CEO of Lucara.

Diamond miners have faced a number of challenges in recent years, ranging from falling prices due to the rise of lab-grown diamonds to the challenge of locating and mining fragile gemstones without breaking them.

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