Large Stones Boost Alrosa Sales

RAPAPORT… Alrosa’s sales climbed 9% year on year to $338.7 million in
September due to strong demand for large stones, the miner said
Wednesday.




Higher sales in the 2-carat-plus and 10.8-carat-plus categories boosted the overall result, Alrosa deputy CEO Yury Okoemov explained. Demand for cheaper goods declined — a common trend at this time of year as Indian factories buy less rough in preparation for closing for Diwali, the Russia miner added.

Rough-diamond sales jumped 8% to $331.6 million
for the month, according to Rapaport calculations, while polished revenue
surged 82% to $7.1 million.



In the first nine months of the year, sales rose 9% to $3.66
billion. Revenue from rough stones grew 9% to $3.59 billion for the period,
while polished-diamond sales went up 9% to $74.1 million.



Alrosa also said it was launching a project to reduce the time lag between extraction of diamonds and their reaching the market. The miner expects the project to decrease its
work-in-progress inventories — the value of its goods that are not yet available for sale —
by more than $100 million in 2018, it said.



Image: Diamond sorting. (Alrosa)