ALROSA Diamond Mining Company, Russia's largest diamond miner plans to increase its production capacity to 41 million carats of diamonds by 2023. There are a number of obstacles to overcome from construction of the underground mines to unexpected technical problems as well as the potential to deplete its resources. However, ALROSA's first Vice President Igor Sobolev, a former mining engineer who was in charge of the company's production, is confident that ALROSA had the technical know-how as well as resources to attain its goal's.
According to ALROSA's vice president, Igor Sobolev the company mined 36.9 million carats of diamonds material in 2013 which is 2 million carats more than in that of 2012. The additional 2 million carats of diamonds came from purchases ALROSA made at the Nizhne-Lenskoe deposit. The Aikhal Mining and Processing Division also contributed significantly to its production of 12.08 million carats of diamonds with its production, a 3 million carats increase in production from the previous year. Some of this success is attributed to a diamond-rich level of ore at Jubilee pipe.
These two pipes represent 33 percent of ALROSA's overall production volume. Aikhal's underground mine reached its project capacity of 3 million carats, which is a 22 percent increase from the prior year. Sobolev maintains that ALROSA's operations were stable and its production volume for the year ended up even larger than expected due to time management measures implemented at the mine. He notes that they have increased the time miner spend at their assigned worksites to seven hours. He also attributes these measures to their increased production.
Sobolev maintains that although the company met its plans for overall diamond output, some of their mines have underperformed. For example, the Komsomolskaya have underperformed. Furthermore, the pipeline is currently undergoing repair work so it was close, thus affecting overall output. Another such example was at the Mirny's Mir mine. The mines open pit was flooded in 2011. they were able to control the lighting but not the volume of water leaking into the underground mine complicating efforts. The Udachny mine also produced 16 percent less volume than was expected, a total of 4.9 million carats. On the other hand, the Nyurba mine met its quota with a total of 7.4 million carats of diamonds produced.
ALROSA also begun work at the Butuobinskaya mine. Which is less than 2 miles Southwest of the Nyurba mine. The diamonds from this mine will replace the Nyurba mine in 2015 when it goes under maintenance. The open joint stock company (OJSC) Almazy Anabara has increased its manufacturing capabilities by a total of 5 percent. For a grand total of 2.5 million carats in 2013. The company is mining the same diamond field as ALROSA, the Nizhne-Lenskoe in which ALROSA purchase in 2013. Sobolev says, "uniting the two companies in one operation enable us to cut costs and increase productivity. Lomonosov MPD produced 650,000 carats. In November 2013, we launched a second processing facility with the capacity of 3,000,000 tons of ore a year. It is going through a test run and will reach its projected output in the second half of this year."
ALROSA is the largest diamond mining company in Russia.
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