Alrosa Starts Work on Huge, New Mir Mine
September 10, 23
(IDEX Online) - Alrosa says work is now under way on a huge, new $1.26bn mine to replace Mir, which closed after the 2017 flooding disaster that claimed eight lives.
The Russian miner's general director Pavel Marinychev told the website of the Yakutia region, where the mine is located, that production is expected to start in 2032.
Mir opened in 1957 as the first diamond mine in what was then the USSR, and had been producing 3.8m carats before it closed - around a tenth of Alrosa's total production. The catastrophic flood destroyed the mine, its workings and machinery.
Reserves of 173.5m carats have been identified at the new mine, known as the Mir-Gluboky (Mir Deep) project, said Marinychev.
Output is predicted to reach 2m tons of ore and 3m carats of diamonds annually for over 30 years, according to a Reuters report.
Production at Mir switched from open pit to underground in 2001 after it became the fourth deepest hole in the world.
In January, Alrosa's then CEO Sergei Ivanov said they were conducting a feasibility study into a replacement mine for Mir, and a decision could be made as early as May.
In June, Aisen Nikolaev, head of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, where Alrosa is headquartered, said work would begin this year, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been appraised of the development.
"We have been designing a new mine over the years, it is fully designed," he said. "The company is already allocating investment funds," he told the Interfax news agency.
"We have received approval from the government of the country. Through the supervisory board, all decisions have been made, and this year we are starting this largest project."
File pic of Mir mine, courtesy Alrosa