Alrosa sells $288m of diamonds in May

Diamond miner Alrosa Group sold $288-million worth of rough and polished diamonds in May.

Rough diamond sales amounted to $277.5-million and polished diamond sales to $10.5-million.

This brought the group's total diamond sales for the five months to May 31 to $2.3-billion, comprising rough diamond sales of $2.26-billion and polished diamond sales of $43.3-million.

"We continue seeing good demand for almost all assortment of our diamond products. There was a planned decrease in sales in May compared to the similar period last year due to the sale of the inventories accumulated by the beginning of the year and a seasonal decline in the current production, mostly driven by mining suspension at some alluvial deposits in the first months of the year," says Alrosa deputy general director Yury Okoemov.