OREANDA-NEWS. On February 06, 2007 Dmitry Medvedev, First Vice-Chairman of the RF Government, arrived in Mirny on a working trip, reported the press-centre of ALROSA.

In his tour of the Mirny District Mr. Medvedev was accompanied by Vice-Chairman of the RF Government, RF Finance Minister and Chairman of the ALROSA Supervisory Board Alexey Kudrin, Plenipotentiary of the RF President in the Far Eastern Federal District Oleg Safonov, President of Sakha (Yakutia) Vyacheslav Shtyrov, ALROSA President Sergey Vybornov, other senior officials of the Republic and ALROSA.

In the town of Svetly located on the bank of the Vilyui River 80 km from Mirny Mr. Medvedev attended a ceremony of inauguration of the third generating unit at the Svetlinskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant, an ALROSA subsidiary.

‘Upon commissioning the third generating unit the main programme of construction works at the plant has been completed,’ says Sergey Vybornov. ‘Every large company wants to have its own power generating facilities. It is well known that hydroenergetics is one of the cheapest providers of energy. Along with that, ALROSA carries out an important function of supporting the social development of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It is very important for us that the Svetlynskaya Power Plant will supply energy not only to diamond mining operations, but also to community facilities in Yakutia’, the ALROSA President underscored.

Dmitry Medvedev also visited the Svetlynsky technical school that trains personnel for the local housing and communal services and energy generating facilities.

At the end of his day in Yakutia Mr. Medvedev held a meeting in Mirny that was focused on the implementation of the instructions of the RF President dated 3rd February, 2006. The agenda of the meeting included issues related to the economic and social development of Sakha (Yakutia), implementation of national projects, improvement of the infrastructure of Russia’s largest territorial entity.

For your reference:
The first power generating unit of the Svetlinskaya HydroPower Plant (formerly the Vilyui HydroPower Plant-3) was commissioned in 2004. It is the third in a cascade of hydropower plants on the Vilyui River and the world’s first and so far the only hydropower plant built in the permafrost area not on a bed-rock foundation. Its construction began in 1979, but was stopped in the mid-1980s. The work resumed after in May 1999 ALROSA became the major shareholder in the project.

As per the design the hydropower plant will generate electricity at its four units with a generating capacity of 90 mW each. After it reaches full design capacity, the power plant will produce up to 1200 million kWh per annum.

The Svetlinsky Technical School is a vocational training school for the housing and communal services and energy sector. It can train up to 900 students. Now it has 450 students.

The city of Mirny was founded in April 1959 by a decree of the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Council when a mining town that had sprung up around the Mir diamond mine received the status of a city. Today the Mirny Administrative District also incorporates the city of Udachny, the towns of Aikhal, Svetly, Chernyshevsky and other settlements and covers the area of 120 thousand sq. km. Mirny with a population of 40 thousand is the location of the ALROSA head office, its core and ancillary production facilities, including its Mirny Mining Division.