(PRESS RELEASE) DUBAI — Unveiling unique rare-coloured sapphires from Australia, FURA Gems has announced the first-ever, organized, global auction of Australian sapphires that will take place between November 15 and 23 at Silom19 Building in Bangkok. The auction will see FURA exhibit a mammoth volume of over 900,000 carats of natural sapphire roughs in rare colours of exotic blue, teal, yellow, green and multi-hued ‘parti’ for a select group of buyers.

Over 50 clients from Bangkok, Australia, Canada, and India will participate in the inaugural sapphire auction. Sharing his passion about these wondrous gemstones, Dev Shetty, Founder & CEO, FURA Gems, said, “Sapphires have been extremely popular with erstwhile and modern-day royalty. We recognize the rich legacy and timeless appeal of these exotic gems. Australian sapphires are the unsung heroes of the global gemstone industry. Discovered in Queensland a century and a half ago, sapphires have since been unearthed by Australian miners in a rainbow of colours that buyers around the world rarely get to see. Exploring the enormous range of Australian sapphires has been a journey of discovery for FURA Gems.”

Furthering its vision to organize and rebuild the largely unorganized global sapphire gemstone industry, FURA Gems is establishing, for the first time, a level playing field for the trade by putting together an organized auction platform.

“The auction in Bangkok will be historic as the market will get a first look at our graded, unheated and versatile range of coloured sapphires in blue, green, yellow, teal and parti colours. We are bringing in rare colors in quantity. It presents a unique opportunity for the industry to explore different colours in sapphires on one single platform,” says Shetty.

FURA’s rich sapphire mines in Australia, one of the most significant sapphire deposits in the century, bring back the promise of the glorious late 20th century when the country accounted for over 90% of the global sapphire supplies. Today, with Capricorn Sapphire and Great Northern Mining in Central Queensland under its belt, FURA Gems owns a cumulative mining area of 20 Sq.km, making it the largest supplier of sapphires globally.

FURA’s global sapphire production has been 5.5 million carats in 2021. Resolute towards giving its stakeholders a stable supply of these gemstones, the miner is setting the ground to boost its annual production up to 10 million carats in 2022.
Additionally, FURA is introducing a range of far-sighted measures, including a comprehensive marketing program, a mine-of origin certification, and a state-of-the-art grading mechanism for Australian sapphires. Collectively, these will contribute to the strong underpinnings for the holistic and long-term growth of the sapphire industry.

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In an aim to bring trade transparency, FURA Gems recently collaborated with GIA to understand the origin of Australian sapphires. Tom Moses, GIA’s Executive Vice President and Chief laboratory and Research Officer, stated GIA traceability reports that link the finished product directly to the ‘mine of origin’ will bring confidence to the sapphire connoisseurs.

Furthermore, FURA’s proprietary and robust color-grading initiative will benefit buyers with clarity on the value of the stones. “Our grading initiative addresses centuries-old anomalies in the trade, where Australian sapphires have seen little or no grading in the past,” Shetty said.

Put together, FURA’s provenance guarantee, robust supply and novel grading mechanism will ensure better price realization for gemstones at every level of transaction along the pipeline and maximize the imminent opportunities for each grade of Australian sapphires.

Blue sapphires — from antiquity — are highly valued for their colour. The serene green sapphires resonate with Fura’s unflinching commitment towards the environment. The vivacious yellow sapphire remains the most sought-after, especially in India. The teal sapphire will satiate the high demand in USA, Japan and European nations as Australia is endowed with the best quality teal sapphires. Lastly, the Parti-sapphires are the piece de resistance with their feisty and breathtakingly new bi-color and tri-color combinations in complementary colours of blue, green and yellow in a single stone.

FURA envisions harnessing the true potential of Australian Sapphires and anchoring all of FURA’s efforts is the sapphire itself, that magnificent creation of the Australian continent. For FURA, the sapphire is the inspiration.