The solitaire of crystalline purity shines with a thousand lights and deceives even the most demanding connoisseur, but this diamond has not spent more than a billion years in the belly of the earth. Far from it. It's brand new, made in an Indian lab and is worth less than half of a natural gem.
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Synthetic diamonds were first developed in the early 1950s, but the development of a commercially viable process is less than a decade old.
These synthetic gemstones have transformed the global diamond jewelry market, now worth $89 billion, particularly for the Indian city of Surat (West), where 90% of the world's diamonds are cut and polished.
AFP
In the lab of Smit Patel, director of Greenlab Diamonds in Surat, technicians throw diamond shards they call “seeds” into reactors that reproduce the extreme pressures found deep in the earth.
It takes teams less than eight weeks to produce a ready-to-use synthetic diamond that is virtually indistinguishable from a natural diamond.
Gas, heat, pressure
The reactors in his laboratory are filled with carbon-containing gases such as methane, in which the “germs” grow under heat and pressure.
AFP
“It is the same product with the same chemical and optical properties,” assures Mr. Patel, whose family has been in the diamond trade for three generations.
The synthetic diamonds are then transported to another facility where they are cut and polished by hundreds of workers.
In Bombay, Lekha Prabhakar, 29, doesn't lecture him. “A mined diamond would be five times more expensive,” she says, “if you want to wear something every day (…), a synthetic diamond is enough.” That’s what appeals to me the most.”
AFP
India's exports of synthetic diamonds tripled in value between 2019 and 2022. Volumes rose 25% between April and October 2023, compared to 15% in the same period in 2022, according to the latest industry data.
Greenlab Diamonds has “experienced 400% volume growth from one year to the next,” says Mr. Patel.
The global market share of synthetic diamonds by value, rising from 3.5% in 2018 to 18.5% in 2023, will likely exceed 20% this year, says Paul Zimnisky, an industry analyst based in New York.
In the United States, the world's largest consumer of natural diamonds, 37% of engagement rings are now made from synthetic diamonds, compared to 17% in February 2023, according to industry analyst Edahn Golan.
“A Perfect Storm”
China and India, two of the largest producers of synthetic diamonds, contributed.
According to the Gems and Jewelry Export Promotion Council of India (GJEPC), Indian laboratories exported 4.04 million carats between April and October 2023, up 42% year-on-year. In contrast, exports of natural diamonds fell by more than 25% to 11.3 million carats.
Sales of natural diamonds had surged during the Covid-19 pandemic, but demand fell as the economy reopened. Large companies were left with costly excess inventory.
The worst decline in his 30-year career, laments Ajesh Mehta, whose group D. Navinchandra Exports is one of the recognized buyers of global diamond giant De Beers.
“It's completely different than a lack of demand,” Mr Mehta told AFP. With economic slowdowns in the U.S. and China, sanctions on Russian diamonds and oversupply, “everything came together like a perfect storm.”
In October, India's natural diamond industry had to voluntarily ban the import of rough diamonds, a rare occurrence.
At least five accredited Indian buyers told AFP that De Beers had slashed prices of its diamonds by 10% to 25% in its first sale of the year, the post-holiday period when stocks are replenished in the United States.
But synthetic diamonds are victims of this supply explosion. Golan said wholesale prices fell 58% in 2023 and WD Lab Grown Diamonds, the second-largest U.S. producer, filed for bankruptcy in October.
According to retailers in Surat, the price of a lower quality one-carat cut diamond has increased from $2,400 in 2022 to around $1,000 in 2023.
For Mr Patel, lower prices will boost demand. “We knew prices would go down because there is no monopoly in this industry.”