Russian mining giant Alrosa has announced its rough and polished diamond sales for September and the first nine months of 2019.
In September, Alrosa’s sales reached $258.7 million of which rough diamonds raked in $256.5 million and polished diamond sales totaled $2.2 million. The miner’s rough and polished diamond sales in January-September 2019 totaled $2.422 billion. During this period, rough diamonds were sold for $2.385 billion while sales of polished diamonds totaled $36.8 million.
Alrosa’s Deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev said that the company’s September sales were higher than sales in the three previous months, partly due to “the traditional autumn market revival after the holiday period and a slight increase in demand from Indian cutters and polishers ahead of the Diwali festival”. Another reason given for the increase was that “some sales from the August session, which started later than usual, moved to September”.
Agureev said that the market “is still facing low demand for rough diamonds, though there has been a gradual recovery for some categories of diamonds. We still believe that it will take some time to get a balance between supply and demand”.
