Oil company Lukoil has for years been seeking a partner for the Grib diamond project in the Verkhotina area north of Arkhangelsk city. Now, the company is considering to start up on its own. The field is believed to hold diamond resources worth up to five billion USD.
That, however, could lead to serious environmental destruction of the area. While the company earlier said that it would extract the resources from an underground mine, it now considers to develop the project as an open pit.
The local population now fears for the worst. A public letter sent to both President Dmitri Medvedev and the Russian State Prosecutor Yuri Chaika reads that the development of the project would completely destroy the local ecosystem and lead to an irreversible catastrophe, Arcticway.ru reports.
The field is located in a protected wildlife reserve (zakaznik) and its development would require the destruction of several lakes and rare nature, environmentalists say. According to Arcticway.ru, the project, if started up, could lead to an international scandal. Local groups say that they “will fight to the end” and seek support both from Russian and international environmental organizations.
As previously reported, Lukoil and its subsidiary Arkhangelskgeoldobycha already in 1993 established a joint venture with De Beers and its Archangel Diamond Corporation in the project. That initiative however failed and was declared all dead in 2009.
That failure came despite heavy engagement of the Russian government and Premier Vladimir Putin.
Read also: Arkhangelsk diamond deal cancelled
Lukoil later attempted to get Russian diamond major Alrosa onboard in the project, but also that failed.
The company is however not giving up the project, and in early 2009 announced in a press release that a total of 11 new wells were to be drilled in the area in cooperation with the French company Foraco.
Arkhangelsk Oblast has rich diamond deposits and diamond mining in the region started in 2003. Severalmaz, a regional subsidiary of Alrosa today operates the huge Lomonosov project. The first million ton of ore was extracted in the field in 2006.
Read also: Diamond mining expanding in Arkhangelsk
The regional population in Arkhangelsk Oblast has had major expectation from the quickly growing diamond industry. However, the industry has given the region little, except environmental destruction, Arcticway.ru reports.
