The Grib mine, an open-pit diamond, is owned by oil supplier Lukoil. It is located in the north-western part of the country in the Arkhangelsk Oblast. Grib’s reserves are estimated at 98.5 million carats, with an annual production capacity of 3.62 million carats.
This makes Grib the first new non-alluvial diamond mine to produce more than one million carats per year, according to Mining Global. It is expected to become the largest diamond mine in Russia in terms of size.
Of the 100 million carats believed to be present at Grib, Lukoil plans to mine 58 million of them in open-pit fashion at a depth of nearly half a kilometer over a 16-year period; it will retrieve the remainder through underground mining.
