3 Rough Auctions Total Nearly $24M for Alrosa

Moscow—Alrosa held three rough diamond auctions this spring that garnered a total of $23.9 million.

The Jubilee Auction #100—the 100th sale of special-size (10.8 carats and up) diamonds in the miner’s history—took place in Dubai and featured three big diamonds weighing 136.21 carats, 190.74 carats and 242.31 carats.

Alrosa told National Jeweler last month that it recovered the 242-carat diamond from the Nyurbinskaya kimberlite pipe in Yakutia in 2009 and has been holding onto it ever since.

It is the most significant rough diamond Alrosa has offered for sale in five years, with the opening price set at $8,900 per carat (about $2.2 million total). 

William Goldberg President Saul Goldberg estimated the rough stone could yield a polished diamond between 70 and 80 carats that could sell for as much as $8 million. 

Last week, Alrosa announced all three diamonds sold for $7.7 million to three companies from India and the United Arab Emirates after 26 rounds of “active bidding” that lasted nearly seven hours.  

It did not break down the sale price of each stone.

Alrosa’s other two recent rough diamond auctions garnered a total of $16.2 million. 

An online auction that included the option to see the goods in-person in Dubai amounted to $5.5 million, with 14 companies from Belgium, Israel, India and the UAE buying 30 lots weighing a total of 625 carats. 

An in-person auction of special-size diamonds held in Antwerp fetched $10.7 million, as 25 companies from Belgium, India and Israel acquired 132 lots weighing more than 2,200 carats.

“It is fitting that we are [seeing]this interest at this very moment, one year after diamond auctions and diamond trade as a whole were frozen,” by the coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdowns, said Alrosa Deputy CEO Evgeny Agureev.  

“This is the best evidence that the diamond industry has successfully passed through unprecedented challenges and proved its resilience.”