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Helga Pombal: Angola's Stardiam finds solution to the threat posed by lab-grown diamonds
Stardiam manager of production Helga Pombal told Rough&Polished's Mathew Nyaungwa on the sidelines of the Angola International Diamond Conference that lab-grown diamonds are creating a parallel market for more accessible stones, combined with lower...
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Ellah Muchemwa: ADPA to launch Africa's first diamond mining standard next year
The African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA), which is based in Luanda, Angola, and represents the interests of mainly African diamond producers and those with the potential to produce diamonds, will next year launch the Sustainable Development...
04 november 2024
Dmitry Fedorov: I want our jewelry to be displayed at a museum in the future
Dmitry Fedorov is the founder of the eponymous jewelry house. His main focus is the creation of Orthodox-inspired premium luxury jewelry of high artistic merit. He told Rough&Polished about his journey in the jewelry industry, about choosing the ‘Orthodox...
28 october 2024
Responsible business practices ‘no longer optional’, says WDC President Feriel Zerouki
The president of the World Diamond Council takes time out of her busy schedule to tell Rough&Polished readers about the critical work of the WDC. Zerouki, the first female present of the body, which includes all the important industry organizations among...
14 october 2024
James Campbell: Botswana Diamonds optimistic as it enters uncharted territory of using AI for mineral exploration
London-listed Botswana Diamonds has expressed optimism about the company’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) to scan the exploration database in Botswana to look for new mineralised deposits. Company managing director James Campbell told Rough...
07 october 2024
Head of ALROSA admitted possible decrease in diamond output due to accident at Mir
"There is a high probability that ALROSA's output will be lower in 2018 than in 2017," he said, but added that a "slight" decrease is possible. At the same time, he does not expect a decline in sales in 2018 given that the company’s current diamond reserves are 14.4 million carats, according to RBC. This year, sales will not be lower than the production target - 39.2 million carats.
The Mir mine produced 2.7 million carats of diamonds before the accident. Its annual production target was set at 3.3 million carats, but ALROSA plans to increase production at other diamond fields, including the Internatsionalny and Yubileinaya diamond mines, in order to partly replace the volumes dropped out of production, RBC said. Thus, the company expects to reach this year's production target. However, according to Igor Sobolev, Executive Director of ALROSA, the mine’s restoration may take a long time. "Now it is obvious that it will not be several months, so we are working on recovery options, and this will be a difficult decision," he said.
The property of ALROSA is insured by SOGAZ. According to Sergey Ivanov, who prior to joining ALROSA in March 2017 headed SOGAZ, the Mir mine was insured against all risks, other than covering downtime and lost profits, for more than 10 billion rubles. The company’s representatives did not answer the question asked at the conference about whether insurance payments will cover all expenses for the restoration of the mine, RBC said adding that ALROSA's former top manager Yury Doinikov had predicted that it would take at least "four years" to restore the mine.