SOCHI, October 24. /TASS/. Diamond mining in the Luele kimberlite pipe of the Luasche deposit in Angola will start in 2020 and total about 1 mln carats by the year-end, Deputy CEO of the Russian diamond miner Alrosa Vladimir Marchenko told TASS on Thursday on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Forum.
The Luele diamond pipe was discovered on the Luasche deposit in 2013.
"Speaking about Luasche, we should mine about 1 mln carats there by 2020 year-end. This is a kind of a pre-Feasibility Study of the project," Marchenko said. "The deposit will start generating money nevertheless and we expect revenues from sales of products mined on Luasche will be about $95 mln for 2020," he said.
According to preliminary exploration findings, reserves of the Luasche deposit are estimated at 350 mln carats, with its total commercial value over $35 bln, Alrosa indicated.