
Alrosa, the Russian diamond miner sold $676.24 million worth of rough diamonds to Gokhran, the Russian precious metals and gemstone repository according to Interfax. These large scale sales of rough diamonds to the repository has been fueled by the limited sales of rough diamonds to the market due to the economic downturn.
Alrosa announced on September 21st that its sales to the market would be approximately US$ 200 million during the month.
Alrosa’s September sales to Gokhran is said to be one of the largest sales Alrosa made to the repository. In July Gokhran bought US$ 379 million worth of rough diamonds from Alrosa.
Gokhran’s budget for purchasing rough diamonds from Alrosa has also been increased to US$ 1 billion. Further increase in the budget for purchasing diamonds from Alrosa is expected later this year and next year.
According to Fedor Andreev, the company President of Alrosa, sales of the first nine months of the year including its sales to Gokhran totaled US$1.34 billion. Due to the economic downturn, Alrosa withheld sales to the market for most of 2009. However it resumed sales to the market in July and has sold about US$ 600 million worth of diamonds since then.