ALROSA’s Supervisory Board approved the Strategy for the development of its cutting and polishing complex for 2020-2022, including the plan of integration of the Smolensk diamond factory Kristall into ALROSA Group.
The strategy will help increase the operational efficiency of the company’s cutting business, as per the report from ALROSA.
Image credit: Kristall
The company intends to improve product mix efficiency, optimise production cycle and create of a consolidated sales system for polished diamonds.
Fancy colored and large colorless diamonds will be cut in Moscow. At early stages of the integration, cutting of colorless diamonds weighing from 1 to 10 carats will be moved to Smolensk. Small-size diamonds will be cut in Barnaul and Smolensk. The total cutting volume will exceed 200 thousand carats of rough diamonds.
Today, the ALROSA Group includes several diamond cutting companies: Diamonds of ALROSA branches in Moscow and Barnaul, and Kristall diamond factory (Smolensk), which was purchased from the state in October this year. Together they account for more than 60% of diamond cutting and polishing in Russia.
In October, it was reported that ALROSA acquired the federal-owned Kristall from the Federal Property Management Agency for $29 million.
Kristall is the largest diamond manufacturer in Russia and Europe, as well as the major exporter of polished diamonds in the country.
Victoria Quiri, Correspondent of the European Bureau, Rough&Polished, Strasbourg
