Alrosa Continues Restructuring of Mining Units

RAPAPORT... Alrosa is streamlining the management teams at its Mirny and Nyurba divisions, aiming to improve the efficiency of its mining projects.The Russian miner will combine the engineering and administrative teams from both sites into one division, thereby eliminating the need for some management positions, it said last week. The merged department will be called Mirny-Nyurba and will be based in Mirny, where both teams operated before the restructuring.The company will not lay off any core production personnel, an Alrosa spokesperson told Rapaport News. Alrosa will offer corresponding vacancies in other divisions to any management staff member who becomes redundant during the merger."Combining...the two management teams has been considered by the company many times before," said Alrosa chief operating officer Igor Sobolev. "The recent industry crisis has spurred the process, and we started developing a thorough transformation plan in 2020."The move is not the first time Alrosa has combined divisions. Last year, it merged the Mirny processing-plant team with several other units at the department. The administrative changes are part of a cost-reduction program Alrosa CEO Sergey Ivanov announced in 2017, shortly after he took on the lead role.Image: An aerial view of the Nyurba open-pit mine. (Alrosa)