MOSCOW, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Alrosa could sell around 40 million carats of diamonds in 2018 provided market conditions are favourable, the Russian state-controlled diamond miner said on Thursday.
The world’s largest producer of rough diamonds has said it expects production to fall in 2018 due to an accident at its Mir mine last year although reserves would allow it to keep sales steady.
It expects 2018 production to fall to 36.6 million carats from 39.3 million in 2017.
The company has not yet reported its 2017 sales but they were expected to come at more than 40 million carats.
Alrosa and Anglo American’s De Beers produce about half of the world’s rough diamonds.
(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh and Andrey Kuzmin; writing by Polina Devitt; editing by Jason Neely)