ALROSA reported recently that its sales of rough and polished diamonds reached US$ 264.4 million in October 2019, marking the third consecutive month of sales growth. The miner said that the overstock in the diamond manufacturing centres was gradually clearing, even though it would be “premature” to expect a complete balance in supply and demand in the near future.

During October 2019, ALROSA Group sold US$ 264.4 million worth of rough and polished diamonds. Rough diamond sales by value amounted to US$ 253.9 million, polished diamond sales – US$ 10.4 million, the company said.

With this, ALROSA’s total rough and polished diamond sales in January–October 2019 amounted to US$ 2,686.6 million. Of this, rough diamonds sales accounted for US$ 2,639.4 million and polished diamonds sales to US$ 47.2 million.

“In 9M 2019, the dominant forces in the rough and polished diamond market included the oversupply of polished diamonds and challenging situation in India’s financial sector. As major producers have reduced diamond supply by a quarter since the beginning of the year and Indian cutters begin to see the overstock gradually clearing, the supply and demand in the diamond pipeline seem to be heading towards balance, even though it would be premature to talk about reaching a complete balance in the near future. Since early August 2019, the prices and demand have somewhat stabilised resulting in three consecutive months of sales growth, with total sales adding 7%, 42% and 2% m-o-m in August, September and October, respectively,” commented Evgeny Agureev, Deputy CEO of ALROSA.

In July and August, ALROSA’s sales had dipped to US$ 170.5 million and US$ 181.8 million respectively.