Fuli Sets Ambitious Goal: 60mn Carats of Peridot
Fuli Sets Ambitious Goal: Will Supply 60mn Carats of Peridot Annually From March 2024, Declares CMO Pia Tonna
by SHILPA DHAMIJA
Solitaire Solitaire Magazine
As full mining operations get set to commence in the world’s largest peridot deposit in China by UK-based Fuli Gemstones Ltd., in 2024, Shilpa Dhamija speaks to the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, PIA TONNA, to understand the prospects of the rare semi-precious stone, in the jewellery world as its consistent supply becomes achievable.
Peridot is the gem variety of the mineral olivine, known to be found as early as the 1500 BC in Egypt. The peridot is one of the very few stones, other than the diamond that is formed in the earth’s upper mantle. And yet, the beautiful olive-green stone has rarely featured in the jewellery world because of its irregular supply, limited to small mines located in Myanmar and Pakistan and few larger deposits in the USA.
In the 1960s, some peridot deposits were discovered in China in the Yiqisong Nanshan region of the Jilin Province. With an interest to mine the semi-precious stone, Fuli Gemstones Ltd, a UK-based mining company bought the mining rights for this deposit in 2016 and discovered that the region contained the largest deposit of peridot known to man. In 2024, Fuli will commence full mining operations at the site and plans to give the elusive green stone an enviable status.
Why and how did you choose to mine this deposit of peridot in China?
In 2016-17, we did extensive geological survey here and realised the potential of the deposit is huge, so we started to develop the mine. The collaborations that you have seen us do with jewellery designers was with peridots that we sourced during the geological survey. So far, we have been mainly building the mining operations and in March 2024 we will start daily mining operations.
The actual mining region is 3 square kilometres but the tunnel from where we extract the stone is about 1.5 kms in length and 4×4 metres wide. Walking inside it is like walking into a tunnel of peridots.
This mine requires very little movement of rocks to get to the gem-bearing ore. We don’t need to move much of the land as we are creating the tunnel on the side of the mountain.
How much peridot can be mined from this deposit?
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