As the diamond market is flooded with a lot of synthetic diamond detection and screening machines, Diamond Producers Association (DPA), a consortium of leading diamond mining companies in the world, plans to audit synthetic detectors to help the industry navigate its way through a broad choice of machines.

Industry sources said the issue of undisclosed mixing of synthetic diamonds with natural diamond parcels has caught the world's attention in the recent past. Diamond traders and consumers across the world are wary of purchasing diamonds without certification.

DPA will be forming a committee of representatives from major industry organizations, including India, to lay a groundwork for an independent laboratory that will test diamond-screening devices currently being sold in the market and publish its results. This move will help the trade to effectively identify authentic and reliable technology to combat undisclosed mixing of synthetic or lab-grown diamonds.

"This is a DPA initiative that responds to an obvious need that all in the trade recognize, and aims to do it in a concerted and efficient manner without duplication of work," Jean-Marc Lieberherr, chief executive officer of the DPA, recently told Rapaport.

At least five different companies or laboratories produce devices for screening diamonds, while the number of actual products is more than double that figure. Devices vary in terms of ease of use and the size of diamonds they can test, while the purchase prices range from $4,000 to $350,000, according to research by Surat-based DRC Techno, which itself produces three different screening machines.

Some equipment can only identify stones grown from chemical vapour deposition (CVD), while other can only pick out high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) diamonds, and a few can do both.

Official sources said the DPA has requested a budget of $60 million from its seven members this year for all its operations, Ernie Blom, president of World Federation of Diamond Bourses, had stated at a press conference in Mumbai this week. While De Beers and ALROSA are expected to contribute $25 million each, other member companies will split the remaining $10 million between them.