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Alrosa has begun extracting rough from a new kimberlite pipe at its Lomonosov deposit, which it believes contains more than 40 million tonnes of diamond-bearing ore.
The miner first tested the Karpinsky-2 pipe in 2018 to determine its economic and industrial potential, Alrosa said Tuesday. The kimberlite is the third of six at the site, located in the Arkhangelsk region.
Meanwhile, Alrosa CEO Pavel Marinychev issued an update on the nearby Severalmaz deposit. In the first five months of the year, the company exceeded its ore production plan and made improvements to its processing, leading to a 9% increase in volume, he reported. During that period, the miner produced more than 1.2 million carats of rough from the site.
The news of the fresh output source and higher production comes amid a pause in production at some of the miner’s smaller deposits, to save money during the downturn. It also follows an announcement from Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev that state-owned repository Gokhran could purchase up to $985 million of Alrosa’s rough over the next three years.
During the first quarter that ended March 31, Alrosa’s revenue fell 42% year on year to RUB 58.13 billion ($709.4 million), while net profit slid 29% to RUB 14.48 billion ($176.7 million).
Image: Rough diamonds. (Alrosa)
