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Russia's Alrosa to be largest producer of color diamonds globally after 2020

This will happen after closure of Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine

© Alexander Ryumin/TASS

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. Alrosa will become the world’s largest producer of color diamonds worldwide after closure of Rio Tinto’s Argyle mine, Director of Alrosa’s cutting branch Pavel Vinikhin told TASS in an interview.

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Alrosa digs up record-breaking, 800-mln year-old diamond

Argyle is operating in Australia since 1983 and is the world’s largest deposit of natural color diamonds. The mine is scheduled for shutdown at the turn of 2020 in view of depletion, according to Rio Tinto.

"Considering the closure of Argyle mine in Australia, we will become the world’s largest producer of color diamonds and can therefore go after leadership on the color diamond market. We have assets rich with color diamonds - Severalmaz and Diamonds of Anabar," Vinikhin said. A pink and a yellow diamonds comprised in The Spectacle collection were found on deposits of these companies, he added.

Alrosa is among the top three diamond mining companies globally. Its share in the global diamond mining is 25%, while 6% more are accounted for Angola’s Catoca, where Alrosa holds 41%.

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