Diamonds Are Getting Expensive. What's the Alternative?

The value of diamonds continues its growth. As of February 2011, the stones are sold for almost 8% higher, if compared to just a few months ago. This growth tendency is expected to remain solid and can be explained by increased demand for rough diamonds. According to Petra Diamonds researches, the diamond mining and production is been aggressively developed to cover the demand. Recently, the company has announced its acquisition of the Finsch diamond mine from De Beers with its huge investments in the production growth. In the last six months, they’ve spent almost $48 million, which is 3 times more than a year before. The company is going to take Group production to more than 3 Mct by 2012, as opposed to their initial plan to do so by 2019.

Petra’s acquisition of the Finsch mine is certainly a big benefit to the company, although it shows that the the price for diamonds will continue to rise – the fact that demonstrates how expensive your diamonds can be in the near future.

As opposed to mined diamonds, there are laboratory created diamonds, the demand for which is gradually growing. While mined diamonds remain the prerogative of rich people, created diamonds fill in the remaining niche. More and more couples prefer created diamond engagement rings, which are apart from being cheaper are also eco-friendly. Nowadays, less people are questioning the properties of lab-grown diamonds, as they are proved to be equal to natural stones. Well, even the experts from GIA in the person of Thomas Moses, a senior vice president of the Gemological Institute of America, are about to speak on lab-grown diamonds in Botswana in late February. He will speak about the latest developments in the field of diamond growing by means of both high pressure high temperature (HPHT) technology and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The aim of the lecture is to enhance the education on the field of synthetic diamonds, not so popularized as mined ones. Frankly speaking, it's interesting to watch the tendency for man-made diamond demand growth.