Alrosa’s July sales slumped to their lowest point in three years, as weakness in the rough market continued to impact demand.
The Russian miner’s total sales slid 50% to $170.5 million for the month, it reported Friday. Rough-diamond sales, which account for the bulk of the company’s revenue, dropped 51% to $164.6 million. Polished sales increased 11% to $5.9 million. Previously, the lowest monthly total was $176.3 million in December 2016, according to Rapaport records. Alrosa has released its results every month since August 2016.
The decline resulted from an oversupply in the midstream, as manufacturers were unable to offload stones due to weak demand. “This factor was exacerbated by [the] low availability of credit facilities…in the midstream [and] trade tensions between [the] US and China,” explained Evgeny Agureev, director of Alrosa’s United Selling Organization.
Sales for the first seven months of the year fell 35% to $1.98 billion, with rough sales down 34% to $1.95 billion. Revenue from polished diamonds plunged 40% to $33.1 million for the January-to-July period.
However, Alrosa predicted an improvement in the situation as inventories even out.
“Recent statistics on the net imports of rough diamonds to India and net export of polished diamonds [out of that country] suggest that the diamond market is gradually coming back to supply-demand balance,” Agureev added.
Source: Diamonds.net
Alrosa’s knack for recovering unusually shaped diamonds has scaled new heights with the discovery of a rough stone resembling a fish.
“In the photo, you see a very rare specimen: a rough-diamond crystal which pretends to be a fish,” the Russian miner wrote in an Instagram post Wednesday announcing the find.
As with its other similar hauls, Alrosa hooked the catch to a marketing goal, using the occasion to emphasize the care it takes to preserve sea life around its mines. Alrosa ecologists release “hundreds of thousands” of fish into rivers in Yakutia and its other mining regions every year, the company explained in the post. In October, it plans to introduce “valuable” broad whitefish into Siberian waters.
Last summer, the company unveiled a rough diamond resembling a soccer ball in the middle of the World Cup taking place in Russia, for which it was a sponsor. The company also found a stone that looked like a skull in time for Halloween, and stumbled upon a heart-shaped piece a few weeks before Valentine’s Day this year.
Source: diamonds.net
Hong Kong based M&B Diamonds expects to sell a record setting purple diamond for more than $10 million, after buying the stone from Alrosa.
The cushion modified brilliant cut, 11.06 carat diamond is the largest fancy deep purple pink stone the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has examined, according to the August 2018 grading report.
Alrosa originally debuted the gem as part of its “True Colour” collection in September at the Hong Kong Jewellery & Gem Fair. M&B bought it at tender in Moscow about two months ago, Roi Sheinfeld, owner of M&B Diamonds, told Rapaport News Wednesday.
M&B will preview the stone to customers by appointment only at its M&B Private Jewelers retail shops in Hong Kong and Singapore. While Sheinfeld chose not to reveal the stone’s purchase price, he expects the sale to yield more than $10 million, depending on the design.
“As it’s one of a kind…we will exhibit it as [a] polished loose diamond,” Sheinfeld added. “The client who buys it will have the privilege of sitting with our design team and creating a one of a kind bespoke piece.”
Russia’s diamond miner Alrosa said on Tuesday that its sales of rough and polished diamonds totaled $559.5 million in March.
There was a slight seasonal cooling off in demand in March,” Alrosa Deputy CEO Yury Okoemov said, according to a company statement.
Alrosa’s total diamond sales in the first quarter 2018 amounted to $1.606 billion, the company said.
