Alrosa Expects April Sales at $300 Million

Russia's diamond mining firm Alrosa expects to sell about $300 million worth of rough and cut diamonds in April, according to a company statement quoted by Interfax. The company is forecasting $2.314 billion in mine output and $3.3 billion in sales revenue in 2010.

In the first quarter of 2010, Alrosa mined an estimated 8.6 million carats of diamonds and sold $925 million worth of goods, Interfax reported. The company expects to sell another $900 million in the second quarter.

Alrosa's marketing plan calls for $3.3 billion in diamonds sales in 2010, while keeping mining operations at the same level as in 2009, when it sold $2.187 billion worth of goods.

The Russian state repository, Gokhran, has earmarked $1 billion to buy rough from Alrosa this year. Alrosa, however, said it intends to sell only $870 million in diamonds, and possibly none at all, if it succeeds in selling all of the goods in the market.

"We'll be able to sell everything on the market fairly successfully unless there's a second wave of crisis," Alrosa President Fyodor Andreyev told Interfax last week.