Alrosa Commissions Udachny Underground Mine

(IDEX Online News) – Alrosa has commissioned the Udachny underground mine which has a design capacity of four million tons of ore per year and is set to become the largest underground diamond mine in Russia and one of the largest worldwide.

The underground mine is expected to reach its design capacity in 2019. In the second half of 2014, diamond mining at Udachny will be ancillary to the ore body development. Commercial production is to start in 2015 and will reach 2.4-3.0 million tons of ore per year by 2016, and four million tons per year by 2019.

The underground project is estimated to mine about 72.3 million tons of ore by 2034. The additional prospective resources are estimated at 72.8 million tons of ore. Once the design capacity is reached, Udachny underground mine will be able to provide over five million carats of diamonds per year.

Open-pit mining at the Udachnaya kimberlite pipe, one of Alrosa’s largest deposits and which was discovered in 1955, started in 1971. Rough diamonds mined at the open pit throughout its operation totaled some $80 billion.

Open-pit mining at Udachnaya pipe is expected to be fully completed in 2015, until then underground mining and operations in the open-pit mine will run in parallel. 

Udachny is the fourth of Alrosa's underground mines and the largest. Alrosa operates the International and Aikhal underground mines each with a design capacity of 500,000 tons of ore per year, and the Mir underground mine with the design capacity to reach 1,000,000 tons of ore per year.

"An ambitious program for the construction of underground mines is an integral part of Alrosa’s development strategy aiming to keep its world’s leading position in terms of rough diamond mining and ensure the diamond mining growth up to over 40 million carats," said company CEO Fyodor Andreev

"The launch of the Udachny underground mine will allow the company to maintain stable volumes of diamond production in Western Yakutia for many years," he added.