PJSC ALMAR –Arctic Diamonds has published an annual report for 2022, including the results of the activities of its subsurface user LLC AGK. The report is posted on the company’s website in the section INVESTORS/Information disclosure.
The year 2022 has become very significant for ALMAR. Despite periods of instability, the company followed its plan exactly: it successfully completed the exploration of part of the placer area of the Beenchime deposit and, on average, completed 104.5% of the plan on both sites – Beenchimee and Khatystakh.
Since 2016, the exploration results have consistently confirmed the forecasts that the company gave for the fields earlier. Based on the results of exploration at the end of 2022, the Company started drafting a feasibility study (FS) of temporary exploration conditions and a report with the calculation of the reserves of the placer diamond deposit of the Beenchimee river.
In the second half of 2022, CMT Consulting experts conducted an examination of the results of our exploration work according to the international JORC code and highly appreciated the quality of the work performed, which allows us to count on the successful completion of the procedure for protecting the reserves of the Beenchime field in the State commission for mineral resources.
For seven years ALMAR has been one of the first in Russia to follow the path of a modern mountain junior. 2022 was a landmark year for the company in terms of access to financial markets – it received the status of a public joint stock company and became even more open to the market. The Company fulfills the requirements for disclosure of its own financial statements, technical information about geological stages. The market can easily get access to information about what stage the project is at, what are the results of exploration, what is the assessment of the mineral base, how the current activity corresponds to the strategy. This allows us to ensure full transparency of business processes.
ALMAR’s investment history began back in 2016, when the first investors were the creators of the company themselves. Then venture capital investments were attracted, and in December 2021 a successful closed placement with professional participants of the financial market was held. Unfortunately, the company’s plans to place shares in the junior segment on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange in 2022 were not destined to come true. We have all seen what drastic changes have taken place not only in the stock market, but in the economy of the country and the world as a whole. Nevertheless, we are proud that, being pioneers, we use our example to show all other junior mining companies possible difficulties and solutions on the way to financial markets.
Also in 2022, the company received the status of a resident of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. The support of the Russian Arctic will strengthen the investment projects that ALMAR continues to develop in the Yakut Arctic.
The registration of PJSC ALMAR on the territory of the operational region (Oleneksky and Bulunsky ulus district in the north of Yakutia) allows increasing the share of payments to the local budget (15% of the total planned tax and other payments) and focusing the company’s social responsibility on these territories.
In the regions of Yakutia, where industrial companies are present, there is a tendency to attract local personnel to industry. ALMAR is already actively attracting local geologists, miners, concentrators and machine operators. After the development of both placers reaches its design capacity in 2026, ALMAR is planning to create about 300 new jobs in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).