Alrosa sees diamond prices growing 3% in 2015
MOSCOW. Nov 26 (Interfax) - Rough diamond prices could grow around 3% a year in the short term, Ilya Ryaschin, acting president of the Russian diamond monopoly, Alrosa , said on a conference call following the release of the company's financial report to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for January-September 2014.
Ryaschin later said this applied to 2015. He said Alrosa had not raised its diamond prices for Q4 2014 and did not intend to do so.
He said prices would go up at the beginning of next year due to the Christmas and New Year diamond jewelry sales. "Right now we can see a balance between demand and supply on the diamond market. We expect demand to increase at the beginning of next year due to the seasonal jewelry sales," he said.
Rough diamonds went up 8%-9% in price in the first nine months of this year, Alrosa said in the middle of November. The average price for gem-quality diamonds rose 3% year-on-year to $175 per carat. Alrosa's revenue from the sale of gem diamonds grew 20% in the 9M to 120.7 billion rubles, but sales fell 19% in Q3, the company said on November 26.
Ryaschin estimated Alrosa would sell 3-4 million carats from its stocks in 2014. He said the Gokhran or state precious metals and gemstone repository would not be selling diamonds in 2014-2015.
Alrosa's capex will be around 36 billion rubles this year, as planned. Not more than 10% of procurements will be for foreign currency. Ryaschin said capex would be similar in 2015 and would start to decrease after 2017, averaging 24 billion -25 billion rubles a year.
