Alrosa ups production 6% to 8.4 mln carats in Q1
MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) - The Alrosa group mined 8.4 million carats of diamonds in the first quarter of 2015, 6% more than a year earlier, the Russian diamond monopoly said in a statement.
Alrosa processed 5.5 million tonnes of ore in the quarter, compared to 5.4 million tonnes in the same period of last year. The ore grade rose to 1.52 carats/tonne from 1.47 carats/tonne a year earlier.
The growth of production was driven by the Mir underground mine, as well as the Botuobinskaya pipe launched in March and an increase in production at Severalmaz .
Diamond output at the Mir underground mine soared 9-fold to 488,000 carats due to measures to reduce the water cut. The Arkhangelskaya and Karpinsky-1 pipes of Severalmaz's Lomonosov deposit doubled output to 450,000 carats as more ore from Karpinsky-1 was mined.
Alrosa plans to mine 38 million carats of diamonds in 2015, 5% more than in 2014.