Alrosa Pockets $11.8mn from New York Diamond Auction

Alrosa, Russia’s state-owned diamond mining giant, raised $11.8-million in its first New York diamond auction of the year, as it seeks to increase its activity in the U.S., Investing News reports.

The company traditionally offered a range of special size rough diamonds (over 10.8 carats). Rebecca Foerster, president of Alrosa North America, said sanctions against some Russian companies did not diminish the appeal of Russian high-quality diamonds.

The company sold 107 stones with a total weight of 1900 carats. Over 30 firms from the largest international trade centers, such as the USA, Israel, Belgium, India and the UAE participated in the auction.

“We held the first auction this year in the United States, selling almost 90 percent of the auctioned stones. In general, the market today is experiencing an increase in activity and interest in our products maintains stable. We invited about 20 American companies to this auction and some of them participated. The overall sales exceeded the total opening bid by 50 percent, amounting to US$11.8 million. Today this is the highest revenue from single auction since we resumed the operations of our USA office, which is now headed by Rebecca Foerster,” said Evgeny Agureev, Member of the Management Board at ALROSA.

Alrosa is the world’s largest diamond producer of rough diamonds in carat terms. In 2018, after a two-year break, the company resumed its U.S. operations in 2018 and hired industry veteran Rebecca Foerster in January to lead the division.

In her first interview since joining the company, Foerster said she doesn’t believe the negative headlines surrounding the U.S.-Russia relationship will have any bearing on Alrosa’s opportunities in the world’s largest diamond market.