Alrosa has manufactured the largest colored rough diamond in Russia’s history, with the polished coming in at over 100 carats.
The fancy-vivid-yellow polished stone, called the New Sun, has a rich honey-golden color, Alrosa said last week. It created the stone from a 236-carat rough, named Dawn, which the miner found in 2020 at its Ebelyakh deposit in Yakutia.
A team of 15 master cutters at Alrosa’s manufacturing complex worked on transforming the diamond from rough to polished, the miner noted. They created a 3D model of the diamond, then carried out a spectral analysis and ran virtual projects for all possible diamond shapes to determine which shape, parameters and symmetry would best highlight the diamond’s color, while preserving as much of its carat weight as possible. Overall, the manufacturing process took more than two years to complete, Alrosa said.
Last month, the Russian miner reported a 77% drop in profit to RUB 19.25 billion ($215.3 million) for 2024. Meanwhile, revenue fell 26% to RUB 239.07 billion ($2.67 billion), due to sanctions and an impairment of RUB 4.98 billion ($55.6 million) stemming from the weak market. The company also announced it would suspend production at several of its smaller deposits to save money during the downturn.
Images: The New Sun diamond. (Alrosa)
