Large Stones Boost Alrosa Sales

RAPAPORT... Alrosa's sales climbed 9% year on year to $338.7 million inSeptember due to strong demand for large stones, the miner saidWednesday.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 millionfor the month, according to Rapaport calculations, while polished revenuesurged 82% to $7.1 million. In the first nine months of the year, sales rose 9% to $3.66billion. 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 itswork-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)