On June 28, 2022, the annual general meeting of shareholders of PJSC ALMAR – Arctic Diamonds, developing diamond deposits in the Arctic zone of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), was held. According to the decision of the participants, the Board of Directors of the company included 2 new independent directors. Sevinch Ipatova has become the new independent director, who will engage in interaction with financial markets and investors. She is currently CEO of AK BARS Finance. From 2019 to 2021, she headed JSC “Management Company “MKB Investments”, in the period from 2015 to 2019, she held the position of Deputy General Director in JSC “TRANSFINGROUP” AM. From 2012 to 2015, she was in charge of compliance control at Gazprombank Asset Management JSC. From 2009 to 2012, she worked as Deputy General Director-Controller of Capital Asset Management CJSC.
The second new independent director Anna Bamburova will be engaged in internal control and risk management. Since 2020, she has been heading the Board of Directors of Trading House Fair LLC (one of the largest producers of cereals in Russia), since 2014 she has been chairman of the audit commission of Arkhangelsk Airport JSC. In 2019-2020, she headed the Board of Directors of JSC Sevmormontazh. From 2013 to 2020, she held the positions of independent director in more than 10 Russian companies.
In the summer of 2022, ALMAR– Diamonds of the Arctic intends to conduct an initial public offering on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. It is planned to place 21,805 ordinary shares (15%) with a nominal value of 1 ruble in addition to the already existing 123,564 shares of the company. To interact with investors and risk management, it was decided to invite two new independent directors.
Lyudmila Nikolaeva, Pavel Andreev, Andrey Karhu, Andrey Novikov and Sergey Grakhanov were also re-elected to the Council.
In addition, the shareholders approved the annual report and annual accounting (financial statements). By the end of 2021, the company’s losses amounted to 29.8 million rubles, they were received due to investment activities in the amount of 128.1 million rubles, including the acquisition of exploration assets as a result of exploration work in the amount of 98.4 million rubles.
The amount of assets at the end of 2021 increased to 220 million rubles, including non-current assets in the amount of 98.8 million and current assets in the amount of 121.2 million rubles.
During the reporting period, 640 m3 of pits were tested at the Beenchime site, 625 tons of sand were removed, the volume of enrichment work amounted to 83 geological samples with a total volume of 312.4 m3. A significant increase in the capacity of the productive reservoir was recorded along the passed mountain lines, which will significantly affect the growth of diamond reserves. On the western slope of the Bulkur anticline of the Khatystakh site, 22 lines of wells with a depth of 10-40 meters with a total volume of 2,285 linear meters were passed in 2021, which made it possible to identify promising areas for an open method of placer development. The volume of forecast resources in the P1+P2 category of the Beenchime deposit amounted to 1.14 million carats, which is 290 thousand carats more (+34%) compared to the 2017 estimate. The total volume of the projected resources of the deposit in categories P1+ P2+P3 increased to 2 million carats. The forecast potential of the Khatystakh site at the Bulkur field for open-pit mining is estimated at 7.6 million carats, with an average diamond content in the sands of 3.66 carats/m3. The productive reservoir steeply sinks to the west at an angle of 30 °, the forecast potential for underground mining to a depth of 10-100 m is 20-30 million carats.
ALMAR plans to complete the exploration phase in 2022 and confirm the reserves of both licensed subsurface areas in 2023. After that, the company will move on to the development of placers of diamonds. At this stage, the equipment necessary for mining will be purchased and put into operation, the site and infrastructure for enrichment complexes will be prepared, production personnel will be completed and logistics will be organized, mining and processing processes will be debugged, pilot operation of both deposits and diamond sales will be organized. The funds necessary to finance the complex of works will be raised based on the results of the placement of ALMAR securities on the financial market.
From 2024, the operational stage starts, including production and the start of sales. The company intends to produce more than 1 million carats of diamonds per year. The main markets are India and China, where ALMAR plans to export most of its products.
In the following years, in parallel with the extraction, ALMAR will continue exploration and preparation for the development of the flanks and underground reserves of the Beenchime and Khatystakh deposits, which are not included in the investment project at the current stage, and other new small and medium placer diamond depothe sits located in the Leno-Anabar diamond subprovincion.
In total, ALMAR will invest more than 3 billion rubles in the development of Beenchime and Khatystakh license areas. Tax revenues based on the results of the company’s activities to budgets of all levels, including the local budget of the Sakha Republic, will exceed 1.5 billion rubles in the ten-year perspective. After the company reaches its design capacity, ALMAR will create 300 new jobs in the republic.
The main principles of the company’s work are the attitude to the Arctic and Yakutia as a native home, which the company plans to continuously equip and develop taking into account the traditions and nature of the region, as well as orientation to the high standards adopted by international diamond organizations in the field of diamond production, trade, human capital and ecology.
You can get acquainted with the annual report on the official website of the company in the section “To Investors/ Information Disclosure“.