In the second half of 2014 diamond mining at Udachny will be ancillary to the orebody development. Commercial production is to start in 2015 to reach 2.4-3.0 Mt/y of ore by 2016 and 4 Mt/y by 2019. The underground project is to mine about 72.3 Mt of ore by 2034. The additional prospective resources are estimated at 72.8 Mt of ore. Once the design capacity is reached, Udachny underground mine will be able to provide over 5 Mct of diamonds per year.

Open-pit mining at the Udachnaya kimberlite pipe, one of ALROSA’s largest deposits discovered in 1955, started in 1971. Rough diamonds mined at Udachnaya throughout its operation totaled some $80 billion. Open-pit mining at Udachnaya pipe is expected to be fully completed in 2015, and until then underground mining and operations in the open-pit mine will be parallel.

Udachny is the forth in succession and the largest underground mine operated by ALROSA. Today ALROSA operates the International and Aikhal underground mines with the design capacity of 500,000 t/y and the Mir underground mine with the design capacity to reach 1 Mt/y of ore. “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 Mct. The launch of the Udachny underground mine will allow the company to maintain stable volumes of diamond production in Western Yakutia for many years,’ Fedor Andreev, ALROSA’s CEO, said at the official start-up ceremony.