Alrosa Sees Untapped Wealth in New Mine

RAPAPORT... Alrosa's newest mine could become one of the company's richest sources of large rough diamonds, recent testing has found. The Russia-based miner conducted experimentation, between March 11 to 15, at apreviously untested portion of the Zapolyarnaya pipe, located at its Verkhne-Munskoye deposit. The purpose of the testing was to determine thequantity, color, grade and per-carat price of its diamond resources. The results yielded 239 stones weighing more than 8 carats each.  Over a period of five days, Alrosa processed 100,000 tons ofore, which were then sent to its sorting center to be assessed. Among the large diamonds the companyrecovered were two gem-quality stones weighing 51.15 and 70.67 carats. Thelargest diamond unearthed was a lower-quality, 268-carat stone. Verkhne-Munskoye currently has four pipes. Previous testing at the other portions of the mine also uncovered large diamonds."The experiment showed once again that the Verkhne-Munskoyedeposit is rich in large crystals," Andrey Cherepnov, Alrosa's chief engineer,said last week. "More than 3.5% of the number of diamonds extracted [were over8 carats]." Alrosa launched Verkhne-Munskoye - its mostrecent mine - in October 2018. It is expected to produce approximately1.8 million carats of rough diamonds per year until 2042. Separately, the company is now exploring Zimbabwe for future miningdevelopments, but will only pursue a project in the country if it receives management and operational control of the deposit, it told Rapaport News. Currently,Zimbabwe's indigenization laws require the country's citizens to own at least 51% of any diamond mine. The government recently repealed thoselaws for other industries, including platinum. Image: Diamonds from Verkhne-Munskoye. (Alrosa)