Held from November 21 to 25, the sale featured average and
smaller-sized goods, including industrial diamonds, the Russian miner said.
ALROSA offered the stones in “test mode” and assessed the
trading session as “successful,” according to vice-president Yury Okoemov.
The company said it plans to start quarterly sales of “special-size” rough diamonds on the EDC trading
platform early next year .
ALROSA chose to
open a branch in Vladivostok, which is about 65 kilometers from Russia’s border with China,
with a view to boosting its sales to the Asia-Pacific region. The first diamond
sale was held in early September, with the Russian news
agency TASS reporting the event fetched $18 million.
Annual revenue from the EDC could reach $100 million to $150
million, ALROSA president Andrey Zharkov told the Rossiya 24 television
channel Wednesday, according to a TASS report. ALROSA’s group sales so far this year are well
ahead of that in 2015, with
third-quarter
revenue jumping 70 percent and sales in the first nine months growing 48
percent.
The miner plans to increase its total diamond
production next year by 5 percent to 38.85 million carats, TASS cited Zharkov
as saying. Production guidance for 2016 is 37 million carats.