Cultured Diamonds May Overwhelm The Real Ones

Published on 09/10/09

Indians believe that a flawed diamond can wreck a person's life. But it's a flawless gem that has De Beers, the world's largest diamond company, worried. De Beers, which at one time controlled more than 96% of the global supply of diamond roughs -- stones before they are cut and polished -- saw its share slip to 70% last year, according to a KPMG India report.

This was primarily because Australia's Argyle and Russia began selling rough diamonds independently, instead of routing them through De Beers' Central Selling Organisation.
Another reason was a steady rise in popularity of laboratory-grown cultured diamonds, which are different from CZ (carbonate zirconium) and other varieties of artificial stones commonly referred to as American diamonds.

Cultured diamonds are made in the laboratory by reproducing conditions of heat and pressure that nature creates over millions of years. They are of the same grade and similar to original diamonds in molecular structure. Cultured stones can be created layer upon layer without blemishes and customised to size and colour as per requirement.

De Beers lobbied in US courts to compel the industry to label cultured stones 'artificial diamonds'. But, a few months ago, the courts permitted the industry to call them 'cultured diamonds grown in laboratories'. The word 'cultured' has a more positive connotation than 'artificial'.