The most precious. The most transparent. The most enduring. The most mysterious of all precious stones.
Diamond. Diamonds were formed billions of years ago. Deep in the bowels of the earth.
Only a small number of crystals survived an incredible journey to the Earth's surface.
Even the smaller number of natural diamonds is of a quality that allows turning them into remarkable jewels.
The most powerful engines. Gigantic engineering structures. Unique technologies. And a team of true professionals.
All these factors are essential for finding the most precious treasure of nature and revealing its luminous beauty.
El Rosa pays special attention to large-scale geological exploration. It uses both traditional and sophisticated state-of-the-art technologies to identify and assess new diamond deposits.
The main purpose of prospecting and exploration is to replenish the company's mineral resources.
Every year the company produces some 35 million carats of diamonds. And this is the volume to be replaced so that the mineral resource base will be securely insured by new diamond reserves.
The errors where prospecting is carried out are so-called hidden or concealed diamond fields, where the thickness of overburdened layers is 100-150 meters or more.
In fact, it's only El Rosa geologists who continue to pursue this purpose, searching for concealed diamond deposits and quite successfully too.
In 2011, five new diamond deposits were put on the company's books and will be developed shortly.
To find these so-called hidden diamond deposits, El Rosa's geologists use a wide range of mobile equipment to collect, process and treat geological samples.
We had to develop a solution to allow carrying out all this work with more efficiency, greater mobility and meeting higher quality standards.
Which we accomplished successfully, that is, we created a mobile plant enabling a relocation of the equipment to any area, irrespective of the mode of transportation.
A relocation can be made either by land or by air on board the chopper, meaning all the requirements for detection of diamond bearing potential and appraisal of the reserves.
A thorough analysis of samples enables high accuracy forecasts on the presence of diamond deposits.
What helps us here is the methods of study of the inner crystal structure, the types of optical centers, defects like nitrogen that can be graded in a diamond and is present either in the form of separate atoms or a group of atoms.
At our enterprise we have a prognostication section that accumulates all this data from geophysical methods of study.
Based on petrographic analysis, on the examination of diamonds and tests, a forecast is made in respect of a certain area or claim.
This method is unique both in Russia and worldwide.
The open-pit method of diamond mining is the most economically viable.
Designing a pit is a very important stage that will enable if the parameters of development, design of quarry benches and the stripping scheme have been chosen correctly to ensure safe and effective development of a mine.
Diamond mines are the most complicated structures.
Alarosa's engineers calculate the dimensions of giant mines to an accuracy of one meter. A one-degree error at the stage of mine design can put at stake the deposit profitability.
Absolutely all the parameters must be taken into account, as well as geological data, the tectonics of the mine definitely, also geomechanical conditions, geotech data and certainly most important diamond-grade data.
The key purpose of optimizing the pit dimensions is to achieve the extraction of the maximum volume of ore, at the same time reducing to the minimum the amount of waste rock to be removed, so-called overburden stripping.
All over the world, Alarosa's mines are regarded as ideal patterns for the mining industry.
The Jubilee Open Pit Mine is the largest of its kind in Alarosa. The mine development project provides for operation until 2030.
Now there are 12 units of loading equipment — excavators, front-end loaders, a hydraulic shovel. It's a 24-7, 365 days a year operation under all weather conditions.
The level of labor and mine operation management at this mine meets the world's best industry standards.
Selection of the optimal combination of such parameters as the trekking climb, open pit wall slope angle, as well as volume of cargo moved by dump trucks is of great importance for making operations in the mine maximally safe and economically viable.
Each mine has the ultimate depth of about 500 meters.
Extraction of hard diamond-diferous kimberlites requires enormous energy.
The mere fact of testing the equipment and its successful testing in Aihau means that the products of this company will not require any recommendations in other parts of the world.
A dump truck that works in an open pit mine covers more than 10 kilometers to reach the bottom level.
Eventually, the limit mark of the bottom level is reached and open pit mining becomes unprofitable.
Is there any method of recovering thousands of sparkling crystals hidden at the depths of over 500 meters?
We need new technologies, new unconventional methods of diamond mining.
The characteristic feature of our diamond mines is that in terms of diamond grade and gem quality, they are one of their richest in the world.
The cost of underground mining is higher than that of open pit mining.
All difficulties pertaining to mining are to be overcome in Yakutia.
The perennial permafrost, vast aquifer systems, aggressive brides, soliferous or soluble rocks, explosive gases.
Our R&D results enable successful handling of all emerging challenges.
El Rosso built more than 50 kilometers of tunnels for underground mining shafts.
Construction of shafts in the permafrost conditions is a complicated and dangerous process.
El Rosso today has experience, technology and qualified staff to make underground diamond mining effective and safe.
Our Almas Automatica Division, in collaboration with the Yakutny-Prolmas Institute, has developed and introduced at the underground mines that are now under construction, automation systems for ore extraction.
These systems are designed to enhance the efficiency of underground operations, the security of personnel working underground in difficult mining conditions
and enable receiving in real-time mode all data displayed by our mine management system.
The sensing system also monitors the volume of diamondiferous ore moved to the surface.
Structural integrity of diamonds is of particular importance and it must not be broken in the process of recovery.
To ensure integrity of diamond crystals, El Rosso uses the best mining machinery from all over the world.
Continuous mining, as compared with the conventional drilling and blasting technique, allows to preserve 20% higher natural jam quality and value than blasting.
Apart from the sub-level caving method upgraded in Russia, El Rosso also uses the progressive system of development of an ore body using belts with enhanced parameters.
The advantage of slicing and filling method is its mineral extraction efficiency, which is an extremely important factor for us.
It enables to preserve the massive host rock in secure equilibrium, thus making mining safe.
According to the original design, the thickness of the backfill layer was to be 5 meters, we are making it 7.5 meters thick.
Thus, instead of three backfill layers per 15 meters, as was originally designed, the new technology enables us to make two.
We have cut out one 2-meter thick layer of high-strength solidifying backfill.
The result is considerable economy in terms of materials and cost of work.
El Rosso uses the whole complex of technology and engineering solutions to separate diamond from the Kimberlite host rock.
In order to involve remote and low-grade mines into exploitation, the company and our division pay special attention to the so-called dry separation methods.
The principle of our SEPAIR technology is very simple. The cyclones create depression. The air carries away the dust fraction, which is discarded.
The so-called heavy fraction remains in the pit. For us, it's a concentrate which will be further processed.
After its testing, SEPAIR will allow the extraction of the valuable fraction directly at the mine site without resorting to the conventional wet separation method.
This enables to reduce operational costs, materially reduce operating costs related to mining at low-grade and remote diamond deposits.
El Rosso's innovative developments in diamond ore treatment can totally change the branch in the years to come.
Buriwesnik was commissioned by El Rosso to develop a new sorting machine capable of detecting all diamonds, including those non-luminescent.
In a technological sense, this is not an impossible task. That is, if you expose the material to X-rays, then the criterion for detection becomes the atomic number of a substance.
So, as is well known, a diamond is composed of carbon, and all the other minerals present in Kimberlite have atomic numbers higher than six.
So, that makes it possible to use this characteristic for sorting diamonds. We have developed such a sorting unit. It's a product of our joint effort.
The technical experts of Buriwesnik and El Rosso have put a lot of effort into it.
Tomorrow this sorting will be shipped to processing plant number three in Mirne, and we hope the operational testing will be a success and will be able to offer to the world a new technology for processing of diamond-difference ores.
For effective treatment, parameters must be chosen very carefully, and all technological processors must be set up for each particular deposit.
The resource base for the processing units of the new black mining and processing division is the new Beansky pipe. All innovations in the global mining have been introduced in the practice of our division.
Going through the process flow, the ore is crushed, combined, separated by size, and conditioned to release precious diamonds.
We have enough reserves to ensure another 50 years of the open pit mine life.
El Rosso's mining enterprises are located in remote, hard-of-access regions.
In Russia, El Rosso forms economy of such a large region as Yakutia.
In such conditions, the communication system is the most important success factor for the company.
El Rosso contributes to development of the regions in which its enterprises operate.
A perfect example of long-term investments is construction of a radio relay line in Yakutia.
The project was launched in 2007, when a radio relay line connecting Mirne and Udačne was built.
The extracted diamonds arrive at the sorting center.
Up to 10% of the company's income depends on the correctness of sorting and valuation of precious natural crystals.
Versatile forms, color shades.
Each crystal is unique.
No two diamonds are the same.
A clean and trained eye of a professional can single out and set apart up to 8000 various characteristic features of a diamond crystal.
Exceptional qualities, impressive character and force of attraction allow diamonds to hold a particular place in our hearts and minds.
A polished diamond is an outcome of an amazing journey that turned an ancient mineral into the most popular jewel of the world.
Splendid luster of a polished diamond embodies timeless values and is a symbol of love and devotion.
