On 20th August, 2004 No. 203 dredge was put into operation at the Gorny site of the Irelyakh Placer developed by the Company’s Mirny division. This new mining and processing vessel manufactured at the Irkutsk heavy engineering plant is designed for diamond extraction from water-bearing deposits.
The dredge has full automatic process control at all the stages. It is processing capacity is 350 cubic meters of diamond-bearing sands p/h. The designed in-use life is 30 years. At its full capacity the dredge will produce some US $ 6 million p.a.
The decision to commission the drege was taken by ALROSA in 2002.
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