RT described the evaluation process to me. James is likely right, it doesn't take a long time.
First the diamonds are weighed and photographed at the processing plant by the security specialists in the presence of company reps and witnesses. The security people then take possession of the diamonds and they are transported secretly to Antwerp. When and how is known only by the security company officials. (Interesting to note that a packet of such diamonds for some company went down with the Swissair flight that crashed on the east coast of Canada, and still hasn't been found).
RT flew to Antwerp after this, and waited around for almost a week before the diamonds arrived. No one knew when they were coming. When they finally were delivered to the evaluators by the security team, each small diamond was evaluated and priced using the price book in a few seconds per diamond. The 3 big diamonds took longer to examine but the total package from the mini-bulks was completed in a few hours. Three evaluations by three independent evaluators were done, so the whole process was completed in a day.
As everyone now believes the two bulks will be done separately now, and reported separately, then the package of diamonds from a 3000 tonne bulk should take 15 times as long as the two 100 tonne minibulks or perhaps 30+ hours per evaluator (of course they may employ more than one evaluator per firm on this bigger sample to speed the process). The 3 evaluations could be done in a week at most you would think, with a week for transport to Antwerp, and perhaps a few hours to write up the details in an NR,....therefore 2 weeks would be my estimate.
I am not sure when the very small diamonds are separated from the rest. The smallest diamonds would be too small to have a value. Whether this separation is done in Antwerp before the evaluation, or done at the processing plant is unknown to me.
FWIW, russett |
