“Arkhangelskgeoldobycha” JSC (Arkhangelsk, Russia):

Zaostrovtsev V. N., Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Chief Engineer, e-mail: VZaostrovtsev@agd.lukoil.com
Yaparov Ya. A., Head of Production and Technical Department, e-mail: Yaparov@agd.lukoil.com
Klimenko Ya. A., Mining Engineer, e-mail: YKlimenko@agd.lukoil.com

«Giproruda» JSC (Saint Petersburg, Russia):

Nalivayko V. A., Chief Design Engineer, e-mail: vnalivayko@giproruda.ru

In March 2011, 15 years after the discovery of Grib diamond deposit, “Arkhangelskgeoldobycha” JSC began its commercial development by launching construction of mining-andprocessing integrated works and preparing the deposit to mining. Concurrently with the stone drivages and the deposit opening, the Kukomka river channel change off the mining lease territory was accomplished. The open pit mine schedule chart allows for stone drivages within 26 months, with preparation of ore reserves to extraction at the tonnage output ensuring the design capacity of the abuilding processing plant as early as 2014. Aimed at reducing the current ore output and the opening period, the project involves temporarily nonworking pitwalls (pillars) to be left in the upper working zone of the open pit mine. The overburden removal and host rock development involves benching 12 and 6 m high, without drilling-and-blasting, using the present-day hydraulic shovels Komatsu РС-3000 and Liebherr R9250 Arctic equipped with replaceable front shovel and backhoe. For operation in low load-carrying capacity rock faces, two light-weight hydraulic excavators Liebherr R964С are provided. The overburden dumping is external, at the southern and eastern pitwalls. At each overburden dump, there are piles of vegetable soil and peat pre-removed before overburden dumping. The vegetable soil is piled for prospecting land reclamation. To date the stone drivages have been completed and the preparatory work has been started for opening and preparing of ore levels for extraction at the annual ore output of 4.5 Mt. By the beginning of 2014, the open pit mine is 90 m deep, and its dimension on the earth surface is 12001090 m.