Alrosa Efficiencies Speed Journey from Mine to Trading Session
February 06, 22
(IDEX Online) - Alrosa says a series of new efficiencies are allowing its diamonds to be sold far sooner.
It has reduced the volume of work-in-progress inventories - diamonds that have left the processing plant but are not yet ready for sale.
A three-year streamlining program has shortened the journey from mine to trading session by around a third- between 15 and 25 days.
By the end of last year the volume of "work-in-progress" diamonds had been reduced by 4.3m carats to a record minimum of 8.4m carats.
The Russian miner said that since 2018 the improvements, including automated sorting, had released $320m from working capital.
It says it has introduced a raft of 300 efficiencies, half of them suggested by its sales staff.
"We will further automate sorting by developing a special software for smart management and process control," said deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev.
"We see further potential for improvements in this area which will help driving work-in-progress inventories even lower."
Pic courtesy Alrosa, shows diamond being manually sorted