Alrosa Sets Amended 2005 Targets

Russian diamond monopoly Alrosa says it will use surplus funds accruing from the ruble-dollar exchange rate and from more efficient diamond sales to finance the setting up of an exploration division in Africa and more active exploration in the Russian North West.

Alrosa’s Supervisory Board set a number of amended targets for 2005 at a meeting on August 25. These include rough diamond production, including production by Alrosa-Nyurba, of $2.185 billion, and a targeted net profit of 14.806 billion rubles ($521 million).

Core product sales, including sales by Alrosa-Nyurba, were set at $2.831 billion. These include rough diamond sales of $2.689 billion and polished sales of $142.6 million.

Alrosa also set a maximum debt figure of $994.6 million and a capital construction budget of 14.121 billion rubles ($497 million) and an exploration budget of 1.886 billion rubles ($66.3 million). In addition, it set its research and development budget at 433 million rubles ($15 million).

The board unanimously elected Russian Federation Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as Chairman, and Igor Borisov, who is Chairman of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republican Government as Alrosa’s Vice Chairman.