Alrosa completes open development of Udachnaya pipe

Alrosa has completed the open development of one of the oldest kimberlite pipes in Western Yakutia – Udachnaya, the press centre of the company reports.

In the first six months of this year, Alrosa held the last blasting at the Udachny open-pit mine, the report says. The company currently finalizes the removal of accumulated volume of the rock mass. According to the plan, in the current year the last 1.05 million tons of ore were mined at the open-pit mine (1.7 million carats).

Now the Udachnaya pipe completely switches  to underground mining. The first phase of the underground mine Udachny was launched in June 2014. After the full production capacity of 4 million tons per year will be reached in 2019, it will be the largest mine of Alrosa and one of the largest in the world.