Lucapa Diamond to restart halted Merlin mine
The phased approach will begin with an 18-month initial phase focused on excavating and dredging five existing pits.
The world’s top diamond producer by output, Alrosa (MCX:ALRS), reported unearthing a gem-quality rough diamond weighing 63.15 carats from the Zapolyarnaya kimberlite pipe of the Verkhne-Munskoye depositlocated in Yakutia.
In a press release, Alrosa revealed that the stone has an octahedral shape with small chips on the edges and tops. The diamond is also transparent with a yellow hue.
In February, Alrosa unearthed a rough diamond weighing 98.8 carats at Zapolyarnaya
Even though the rock is not a record-breaker, it is amongst the largest ones found in the area. The first large gem-quality diamonds of the Verkhne-Munskoe deposit were a 51.49-carat crystal, mined immediately after the official opening of the site in the fall of 2018, and a 98.8-carat diamond recovered in February 2019.
Not long ago, Alrosa discovered that the Verkhne-Munskoye deposit is more prolific than previously thought. The discovery followed a series of tests the miner ran back in March to clarify the diamondiferous nature of the northwestern part of the Zapolyarnaya pipe. In five days, the company extracted 239 diamonds larger than 8 carats, which represented more than 3.5% of the number of diamonds extracted during the experiment.
According to Alrosa, these figures exceed the data for other pipes.
The Verkhne-Munskoye deposit is situated 170 kilometres from the town of Udachny and currently is the Russian firm’s largest investment project.
The deposit hosts four kimberlite pipes, Zapolyarnaya, Deimos, Novinka, and Komsomolskaya-Magnitnaya, which are expected to generate about 1.8 million carats of rough diamonds per year for more than 20 years.
