06:18From quarry to carat: Delve into Alrosa’s ‘brilliant’ mining ops
Alrosa is Russia’s largest diamond mining company, and, as footage filmed at the Nakyn ore field in the Sakha Republic shows, a lot more goes into producing these precious stones than meets the eye.
The Botuobinsky open pit mine is one of two at the Nakyn ore field and is one of many operated by the company.
The ore, kimberlite, is extracted by blasting, then transported to a processing plant by massive mine trucks.
“We receive the ore in the rough granulation building, where it's broken down to a size of 400 millimetres, after this it's passed through a mill where it is broken down through a process of wet grinding to 32 millimetres,” Enrichment Plant 16 manager Ivan Aksenov said, adding that X-ray and luminescent separation is then used to further sort the diamonds.
Once the diamonds from Botuobinsky have been sifted from the ore, they’re sent to Alrosa’s sorting centre in the Sakha Republic town of Mirnyi.
“We get six classes of diamond. We split these classes up into 16 groups, by both size and weight. We take a sample from each group, we then split these samples up according to a classifier, and we have a price for every classification. This is how we determine the value of each sample," Diamond Sorting Centre director Oleg Popov explained.
From here, the diamonds are transported to Moscow where they’re polished ready to be made into jewelry, while diamonds that are too small or of insufficient quality find uses in industry in cutting, grinding and polishing.
In addition to the Sakha Republic, Alrosa has operations in the Arkhangelsk Region. With estimated deposit reserves of over 1 billion carats, Alrosa has a global market share of rough diamond production of 28 percent.
More on this: https://ruptly.tv/en/videos/20190625-035
06:18Alrosa is Russia’s largest diamond mining company, and, as footage filmed at the Nakyn ore field in the Sakha Republic shows, a lot more goes into producing these precious stones than meets the eye.
The Botuobinsky open pit mine is one of two at the Nakyn ore field and is one of many operated by the company.
The ore, kimberlite, is extracted by blasting, then transported to a processing plant by massive mine trucks.
“We receive the ore in the rough granulation building, where it's broken down to a size of 400 millimetres, after this it's passed through a mill where it is broken down through a process of wet grinding to 32 millimetres,” Enrichment Plant 16 manager Ivan Aksenov said, adding that X-ray and luminescent separation is then used to further sort the diamonds.
Once the diamonds from Botuobinsky have been sifted from the ore, they’re sent to Alrosa’s sorting centre in the Sakha Republic town of Mirnyi.
“We get six classes of diamond. We split these classes up into 16 groups, by both size and weight. We take a sample from each group, we then split these samples up according to a classifier, and we have a price for every classification. This is how we determine the value of each sample," Diamond Sorting Centre director Oleg Popov explained.
From here, the diamonds are transported to Moscow where they’re polished ready to be made into jewelry, while diamonds that are too small or of insufficient quality find uses in industry in cutting, grinding and polishing.
In addition to the Sakha Republic, Alrosa has operations in the Arkhangelsk Region. With estimated deposit reserves of over 1 billion carats, Alrosa has a global market share of rough diamond production of 28 percent.
More on this: https://ruptly.tv/en/videos/20190625-035