KALININGRAD, March 1. /TASS/. The Kaliningrad Amber Plant plans to extract a record 600 tons of amber from the Primorskoye deposit in the Kaliningrad region in 2024, the press service of the Rostec state corporation reported.
"In 2024, it is planned to extract 600 tons of succinite (the scientific name for Baltic amber) from the depths of the quarry [at the Primorskoe deposit]. This volume will be the highest in the history of the world’s largest amber deposit and will be 12 times higher than the production volume at the start of the quarry’s development," the statement says.
The plant has been developing the Primorskoye amber deposit since 1976.
In 1977, the quarry produced only 47 tons of amber, in 2013 - 273 tons. The maximum amount of amber that could be extracted from this area was 575 tons in 2021.
The 2024 amber mining season began at the plant on March 1.
"Achieving a volume of 600 tons will allow us to break our own record, increasing amber production at the Primorsky quarry by more than twofold since 2013, when the Kaliningrad plant became part of Rostec. We plan to achieve these indicators by October-November," the plant’s general director Mikhail Zatsepin said as quoted by the press service.
This volume is close to the ultimate record for annual amber production - 630 tons, which was recorded at the plant in 2023. However, then the company was mining in two fields at once: Primorskoye and Palmnikenskoye, but now only one quarry will be developed - an area of 6 hectares, the general director of the plant said.
It became possible to set such production goals "thanks to a large-scale program of technical re-equipment of production, which was implemented with the support of Rostec," he added.
About the plant
JSC Kaliningrad Amber Plant is the only enterprise in the world that conducts industrial mining of raw amber and manufactures jewelry and souvenirs from it. It develops the Primorskoye deposit in the Kaliningrad region, Russia’s exclave on the Baltic Sea, where about 90% of the world's amber reserves are concentrated. The capacity of the deposit is estimated at more than 53,000 tons of amber. This is enough to continue mining on its territory for another 100 years.
In 2013, according to the decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the plant was transferred under the management of the state corporation Rostec. Raw amber is sold on the electronic trading platform of JSC Exchange St. Petersburg and auctions.