New York-headquartered luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. is looking to increase its supply of rough diamond direct from the source, with the company’s chief executive Michael Kowalski telling the Financial Times the company would be ready to repeat a deal by which it lent $50 million to a mine in Sierra Leone for the right to buy its rough diamonds.

“We have recognized that it may be necessary to commit capital to assure diamond supply,” Kowalski told the British newspaper. “We’re not going to bet the company on the mining business. What we would do is ... look for selective opportunities.”

Kowalski said that the policy comes as the result of a belief that rough diamond supply is dwindling. “We are absolutely facing an environment of shortage, and the shortages are greater at the higher quality levels, so we are in constant search of new supply sources,” he stated.

Earlier this year, Tiffany’s extended a loan to the Koidu mine in Seirra Leone, with the goal of establishing preferential rough diamond supply. It is a part of a 15-year effort the jewelry company to integrate and internalize its supply chain.

Tiffany is not the only luxury jeweler going directly to the source. De Beers, which is the world’s largest diamond producer today also operates its own high end jewelry chain, and Harry Winston is both a mine jeweler and part owner of the Diavik mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories.