Summer Slowdown Reflected in ALROSA Rough Sales in August

(IDEX Online) – ALROSA reported rough diamond sales of $255.7 million in August and eight months of 2017. Polished diamond sales last month amounted to $1.9 million.

Meanwhile, in January-August, ALROSA's rough diamonds sales amounted to $2.983 billion while polished sales were $64.2 million.

"August is traditionally a low season for trading. This year was no exception, although sales volumes in August were slightly higher than a year earlier," said ALROSA Vice President Yury Okoyomov. 

In separate news, ALROSA said it is the leading diamond miner in terms of investing in social programs according to research conducted by PriceWaterhousecoopers (PwC).

"PwC notes the importance of social and environmental responsibility both in terms of compliance with the best business practices and in terms of the reputational and emotional components in the cost of the industry’s final products — diamond jewelry. Within the framework of the research, PwC studied the social and environmental performance indicators of the diamond mining companies as well as the companies belonging to the gold mining segment as these companies are the most comparable to the diamond mining companies in terms of technological process. Based on publicly available data, PwC compared the average performance indicators of companies over several past years in terms of investments in social and environmental programs, staff turnover, number of women in staff, intensity of energy and water use and intensity of greenhouse gas emissions," ALROSA said in a statement.

"According to the results of the research conducted by PwC, ALROSA is an absolute leader in terms of investments in social programs directing to social spending on average 2.8 percent of its revenue (while the respective average level for other participants of the rating is about 0.5 percent). In 2016, social investments of ALROSA exceeded $170 million (RUB 10 billion) including RUB 6.5 billion of charity contributions and contributions to support the local infrastructure, education and health, and RUB 3.9 billion of contributions in corporate social programs for employees and their families. Social investments accounted for about 3.3 percent of revenues or 7.8 percent of the Company’s net profit under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). On average, about 3 percent of each carat of rough diamonds sold by the company are directed for satisfying social needs."

“Social responsibility and environmental protection have always been very important activities of ALROSA," said ALROSA President Sergey Ivanov. "We understand our responsibility to the employees and the population of the regions where we are mining diamonds, therefore we have always done our best for ensuring decent working conditions and wages, for implementing social programs in accordance with the best business practices, for monitoring closely implementation of environmental legislation and for minimizing negative impact on the environment. Therefore we are indeed happy to see clear confirmation of the fact that the Company is headed in the right direction.”

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