By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa, the Russian state diamond monopoly and world’s largest producer of rough, moved last week to resist price-cutting and discounting pressure across global diamond markets by announcing it will reduce its supply of rough for sale instead.

by John Helmer - Monday, October 10th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow There is no negotiation under way and no agreement between Alrosa and India’s state-owned Minerals and Metals Trading Company, MMTC, for a private placement of Alrosa shares in Indian hands, Russian sources, including a high Alrosa official, told PolishedPrices.com today. They were responding to a string of recent press reports from […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa, Russia’s near-monopoly diamond miner, is for the third year running the world’s largest diamond miner. The good news appears in a brief summary report issued by the company this week. Production by Alrosa in the six months to June 30, this year, comes to 19 million carats. That compares with […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 29th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Who would buy a share in a diamond-mining company whose board of directors lacks anyone with the career experience of mining anything; or of managing a public shareholding company; or of selling commodities in a global market? That’s not a question, the answer to which the Russian Finance Ministry cares if […]

by John Helmer - Monday, June 20th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa’s chief executive Fyodor Andreyev has announced that the state-owned diamond monopoly of Russia holds diamond reserves of 1.23 billion carats. Calculated according to the Russian mineral reserves classification, he said that 1.014 billion carats are proven, 211 million carats are probable. The new numbers were mentioned in a briefing for […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow The long-serving chairman of the Supervisory Board of Alrosa, the state diamond mining monopoly, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin(background image), has announced he will step down at the next Alrosa shareholder meeting scheduled for June 30. Kudrin’s exit from the board has been ordered by a presidential decree, issued on April 2, […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow When it comes to transparency of corporate practice and accountability for the spending of state money, Alrosa, the Russian state diamond monopoly, isn’t famous. But one thing is finally clear – Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has at long last gotten his wish to be relieved from having to serve as chairman […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow In his first extended interview since taking over Alrosa in July of 2009, chief executive Fyodor Andreyev said in a Moscow newspaper yesterday that Alrosa’s diamond investment strategy puts Russia first, Africa last. According to Andreyev, his predecessors’ efforts to build new diamond mines in Angola and explore for diamonds in […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 24th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Budding actors are usually taught to beware the unintended effects of spotlights. By focusing light, they can bring out an audience’s curiosity in what is going on in the dark, off stage, especially if the actor delivers lines that have been heard before, or delivered weakly.

by John Helmer - Monday, March 21st, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa, the world’s number-1 diamond producer, has released a new planning document outlining production, earnings and diamond reserve targets after the start of three new underground mines, suggesting higher earnings than were calculated last year, and much longer mine life.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
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