Alrosa to Market its Angolan Rough Diamonds

For the first time, Alrosa is marketing on its own rough diamonds from its 33 percent owned Catoca diamond mine in Angola. A shipment of diamonds worth $22 million has been sent to Alrosa’s Antwerp subsidiary to be auctioned next month.

Alrosa’s vice president, Dmitry Novikov, said Thursday the company had been negotiating with Angolan authorities for over a year before it was able to purchase from Sodiam all diamonds mined the previous month at Catoca. Sodiam holds the exclusive export rights for Angola’s diamonds.

Quoted in the Russian Kommersant newspaper, Novikov said Alrosa will receive full market prices for the goods.

Before Sodiam was handed the rights by parent company Endiama, Angola’s state owned diamond firm, exclusive marketing rights were held by Ascorp, controlled by Lev Leviev. Leviev also has an 18 percent stake in the Catoca mine.  

According to the newspaper, Alrosa views the upcoming Antwerp sale as a breakthrough. “It’s not so much that we were able to crowd out Leviev’s company. We will finally know how much Catoca’s diamonds are worth,” Novikov was quoted saying.

Exports of Angola’s diamonds is currently one of the hottest battlefields in the global diamond mining industry, with talks in the market that Israeli rough diamond trader Dan Gertler is on the verge of winning exclusive rights following a fallout between Leviev and former business partner Arcadi Gaydamak, as reported in the press recently .

Alrosa has been active in Angolan mining since the 1990s, but could never sell its Angolan goods on the open market on its own before. According to Novikov, once the new scheme went into effect the price of Catoca goods went up 15 percent.