Alrosa Posts $303.5 Net Loses, Redeems Notes

Alrosa turned an 8.811 billion rubles ($303.45 million) loss in the first nine months of 2009, compared to a 3.54 billion rubles ($122 million) profit in the January-September 2008 period, Interfax reported. Rough diamond sales totaled $786.4 million.

Revenues for Alrosa, Russia's largest diamond company, dropped to 39.29 billion rubles ($1.36 billion) during the January-September 2009 period, a 22.5 percent decrease compared to the previous year.

Rough diamond sales missed their three quarter sales target of $967 million. Unsurprisingly, the weak sales are 39.9 percent below last year’s rough diamond sales.

Alrosa issued Euro Commercial Papers (ECP) to meet its debt payment obligations. Recently the Russian diamond miner redeemed three tranches totaling $232 million.