KALININGRAD, November 6. /TASS/. The Kaliningrad Amber Factory complemented its collection with a 1.2 kg nugget. It has become the eighteenth unique mineral with the weight over one kilogram each found during the mining season of 2020, press secretary of the Factory Yulia Mamyrbaeva told reporters on Tuesday.
"The amber nugget with the weight of 1,206 grams was found by the dragline operator on Thursday, November 5, and not in the amber mining process but when cleaning the water drainage channel in the Primorsky open pit of the factory," the press secretary said. The number of nuggets having the weight over 1 kg reached 18, she added. Similar discoveries of unique stones took place in 2019 and 2017.
The factory has already reached its production target for this year, having mined 400 tonnes of amber.
The Kaliningrad Amber Factory is the only amber factory in Russia and the world's largest located in the village of Yantarny in the Kaliningrad Region, where about 90% of the world's reserves of this valuable mineral, which is 50 mln years old, are concentrated. Reserves of the resource base are estimated at 116,000 tonnes, which will ensure the industrial production of amber for 350 years. Over 467.9 tonnes of amber worth more than 3 bln rubles ($38.6 mln) were sold in 2020.