This weekend the Russian government lifted the lid on what’s been kept as a state secret since the 70s; an asteroid crater known as Popigai Astroblem studded with enough diamonds to dwarf the known diamond reserves of the entire world. As the diamonds are industrial-grade “impact diamonds,” it’s mostly of interest to high-precision industry corporations and scientists.
I don’t understand the diamond business at all. Will this have consequences for the De Beers monopoly, or are they into something else entirely? Any chance of De Beers buying Russia out of this find? I remember hearing in the early 2000s that Russia and Canada (and Australia?) announcing that they’d be distributing diamonds outside the De Beers channels and that this would lead to some form of change in De Beers. Shiny dopers, any truth to that?
From the way the diamonds have been described, Popigai appears unlikely to produce many gem-quality stones. Russia already has a thriving market in gem-quality diamonds; for many years they sold exclusively to DeBeers, but have for years now sold through a state-controlled company. After Canada, Australia, and Russia declared their intentions to go outside of DeBeers to market diamonds, DeBeers changed their strategy to concentrate on branding, selling only diamonds they had produced themselves. Last year, their market share fell to 35%.
I recall reading somewhere that DeBeers invented the diamon engagement ring fad in the 1920s or 30s to bolster their business and inflate the price. There’s a certain irony to a company being muscled out of a market they created from scratch, if that’s true!
No, these aren’t gem-quality diamonds, for the most part. DeBeers mostly does gem-quality stones. Besides, Debeers hasn’t had a monopoly, or even a majority market share, in over a decade.
