Alrosa's Verkhne-Munskoye mine produces 63.15 carat diamond

The largest investment project of Russian diamond miner Alrosa, the Verkhne-Munskoye diamond deposit, produced a 63.15 carat diamond earlier this month. The rough stone came from the deposit's Zapolyarnaya pipe. The crystal has an octahedral shape with small chips on the edges and tops. The mined diamond is transparent with a yellow hue.

The Verkhne-Munskoye diamond deposit is located in the west of Yakutia, 170 km from the town of Udachny. At present, four kimberlite pipes have been explored: Zapolyarnaya, Deimos, Novinka, and Komsomolskaya-Magnitnaya. Today it is the largest investment project of ALROSA. Investments amounted to about $1 billion at the stage of preparation for the mining, and the total investment over the entire period of development is estimated at about $3.75 billion (including maintenance investments until 2042). The Verkhne-Munskoye deposit will produce about 1.8 million carats of rough diamonds per year. The deposit's mine life is expected to last until the year 2042.

In March, ALROSA conducted "an experiment to clarify the diamondiferous nature of the northwestern part of the Zapolyarnaya pipe at the Verkhne-Munskoye deposit." Over the course of five days, 239 large rough diamonds weighing more than eight carats diamonds were extracted from the Zapolyarnaya pipe. They formed 3.5 percent of the total of diamonds mined during the experiment. "These figures exceed the data for other pipes of the Alrosa Group," the company reported.