After six years of development, production is due to begin at Alrosa’s Luaxe diamond deposit in Angola next year, the nation’s government said.
Output will come to around 1 million carats valued at $90 million in the first year, according to a Reuters report. The initial stages of production will be a “pilot project,” Endiama strategic planning and mining operations administrator Laureano Receado Paulo said last week in a Facebook post.
Alrosa discovered the Luele pipe in the Luaxe region in 2013 during exploration work it carried out together with local experts. The company jointly owns the site with state-controlled diamond-mining companies Catoca and Endiama. The project could be one of the largest discoveries in the diamond industry in 60 years, worth more than $35 billion, Alrosa said in 2017.
The additional rough from Luaxe will help boost Angola’s diamond production in the next few years. Total output for the country is expected to reach 13.8 million carats by 2022. Production for 2019 will be approximately 9.5 million carats, Paulo added on the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Oil Angola (MIREMPET) Facebook page.
