Alrosa to mine 37-39 mln carats of diamonds in 2016
MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) - Alrosa , Russia's Yakutia-based diamond monopoly, could mine 37 million-39 million carats of diamonds in 2016, the company press center cited President Andrei Zharkov as saying at a group-wide meeting.
"Although the first quarter was fairly good, and demand for products was above target, we are looking at the whole of 2016 fairly conservatively and consider one of our priorities to be not to grow our stockpiles. In order to respond adequately to the market situation, we are looking at production scenarios of between 37 million and 39 million carats for 2016," Zharkov said.
Zharkov said in March that Alrosa was looking at two production scenarios for 2016 which see it mining between 34 million and 39 million carats of diamonds. The company considered lowering production due to a difficult market situation at the end of 2015.
The company's goal is to cap its diamond stocks, which totaled 22 million carats worth an estimated $2.5 billion at the end of last year. Those stocks decreased in January-February as sales grew, Zharkov said at the time.
Alrosa mined 38.3 million carats of diamonds in 2015, 6% more than in 2014.
Alrosa had to lower prices for its range of diamonds 15% on average last year as the market deteriorated. But demand picked up in January this year, and the company boosted revenue from diamond sales 25% in the last two months, Zharkov was quoted as saying on April 1.
