(INTERFAX.RU) - ALROSA, which controls about 90% of Russian diamond mining, will soon be unable to maintain the optimal balance of the diamond resource base, said Egor Zakharov, a representative of the company's exploration complex, during a meeting of the expert council of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection.
According to him, such a situation (when the level of production exceeds the booking of new reserves - IF) will arise even if the current level of funding for exploration and human resources is maintained.
In this regard, the ALROSA representative proposed several measures that are designed to stimulate the creation of new high-quality facilities and speed up the process of finding new deposits.
He considers it necessary to significantly increase regional exploration aimed at localizing promising areas with an assessment of inferred resources of categories P3 and P2. The work should be focused on the study of buried areas by way of drilling, the ALROSA representative believes.
It is advisable to increase the term for the execution of state contracts for exploration by 1 year (taking into account the fact that the first year is the most difficult for contractors in terms of financial obligations), as well as to allow private subsoil users to carry out small-scale regional work.
Finally, it is necessary to consider the possibility of accelerating state programs for the development of Yakutia’s Arctic zone in terms of developing year-round transport links in promising areas, such as Oleneksky and Anabarsky districts, Zakharov believes.
"The transport accessibility of these areas can contribute to the additional involvement of low-grade fields in exploration," he said. One such example is the beginning of the development of the Verkhne-Munskoye field.
After the construction of a technological passage to the Verkhne-Munskoye field, a whole cluster of prospecting and appraisal work was formed around it. "Already the first prospecting work made it possible to reveal the presence of new kimberlite bodies there. The deposits have not yet been found, but we do not lose hope and continue to work there," Zakharov said.
ALROSA's reserves currently exceed 1 billion carats of diamonds, the company said in May. The latest assessment of ALROSA's JORC reserves published so far (as of July 1, 2018) assumed reserves at the level of 628 million carats, while resources at 1.064 billion carats.
The company's production in 2022 increased by 10%, amounting to 35.5 million carats of diamonds against the target of 34-35 million carats.
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