Diamonds are a natural resource primarily found in African nations such as South Africa and Botswana. However, they can also be found in Canada and Russia. Diamonds serve two main purposes; they are either used for jewelry or industrial purposes such as cutting and drilling. Though they are coveted for jewelry the majority of diamonds are actually used in industrial processes because few diamonds are of a high enough quality to be set in jewelry. These relatively rare natural resources make for a huge multi-billion dollar jewelry industry. There are quite a few steps that go into the manufacturing of diamonds for industry use and jewelry production.
The diamond pipeline is made up of six distinct steps that we will explore further. The first step is exploration, which involves locating this rare natural resource. The subsequent steps lead to the extraction and production of useable products. The remaining steps are mining, sorting, cutting and polishing, jewelry manufacturing, and finally retailing. These steps are discussed in the following pages.