MELBOURNE(BullionStreet) : Australia's largest pink diamond, discovered by Rio Tinto at Argyle mine will be cut and ploished as s single stone.

According to a statement by Rio Tinto, the diamond will be cut and polished by the company's expert diamond cutter Richard How Kim Kam.

The company, however did not indicate how much the gem was expected to fetch, but says pink diamonds attract, on average, 20 times the price of an equivalent white diamond.

The process to cut and polish the diamond as a single stone is expected to take ten days.

The 12.76 carat gem to be known as the Argyle Pink Jubilee was found at Rio Tinto's Argyle mine in the remote east Kimberley region of Western Australia, which produces more than 90 per cent of the world's supply of pink diamonds.

The finished gem will be graded by a team of international experts and shown around the world, then sold under a tender process later this year.

Argyle Pink Diamonds manager Josephine Johnson said a diamond of its level was extraordinary.

"It has taken 26 years of Argyle production to unearth this stone and we may never see one like this again," Johnson said.