Diamond miner Alrosa has published its production results for January-June 2017 and provisional sales results for the second quarter of the year. In H1, Alrosa’s production was up 14% year-on-year to 19.3 million carats of rough. According to the company, “increased diamond grade, 19% on the average, made the growth possible”.
Igor Sobolev, Alrosa’s First Vice President, commented: “Most of the Company’s major mining and processing divisions demonstrated an upward trend in the production results–both in terms of production output and in terms of diamond grade”. He added that for the first six months of this year, Aikhal Mining and Processing Division accounted for more than a third of the whole diamond output by Alrosa, extracting 6.9 million carats of rough diamonds – 26% higher year-on-year. Mirny’s production was up 13% to 4.4 million carats; Udachny – by 29% up to 2.1 million carats; Nyurba – by 2% up to 3.4 million carats; Lomonosov – by 28% up to 1.2 million carats.
Rough diamond sales in the second quarter totaled 10.201 million carats, including 8.048 million carats of gem-quality rough diamonds at the average price of $138.4/carat. Rough diamond sales for Q2 totaled $1.132.2 million. Polished diamond sales for this period amounted to $22.7 million.
