CEO says ALROSA has 18 mln carats of diamonds in stock

DAVOS, Jan 25 (PRIME) -- Russian uncut diamond mining giant ALROSA had 18 million carats of diamonds in stock as of the beginning of 2018, and expects to have 14–15 million carats at the end of the year, CEO Sergei Ivanov told PRIME on Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

“We started the year with 18 million carats, which accounts for about six months of our production. These reserves are average for us. But we have a rather large period of transition from a plant to packaging of weights into boxes. So we have no task to maintain the level,” he said.

“We expect to sell slightly more diamonds than produce this year. This is why I think that it would be a good situation if we have 14–15 million (carats) at the end of the year.”

He expects sales at 40 million carats in 2018 with production reaching 36.6 million carats.

“We may sell about 3.4 million carats of stock diamonds. But we will look at how the market behaves. We have no goal of sticking to the plan,” he said.

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