Russia may soon become world's largest producer of colored diamonds

One of Russia's top diamond producers, Alrosa, is poised to take the lead in the global colored-diamond market as soon as Australia's Argyle mine - currently the largest supplier of the precious rare stones - closes The Argyle diamond mine, widely regarded as the world's number one source of treasurable pink gems, as well as other colored diamonds, is expected to close in late 2020 after more than 30 years of operation, due to the depletion of economically viable stones "[Following] the closure of the Argyle mine in Australia, we will become the world's largest producer of colored diamonds and can therefore go after leadership in the colored diamond market," the director of Alrosa's cutting and polishing division, Pavel Vinikhin, said in an interview with TASS.

He explained that the company owns several assets rich in colored diamonds, such as Severalmaz and Almazy Anabara The latter is known for discovering a 14.83-carat vivid purple-pink diamond gem named 'Spirit of the Rose', which could become Russia's most expensive gem Another fancy diamond in the company's collection is the unique 2069-carat 'Firebird' yellow gem, which was acquired by the world-renowned high-end jewelry brand Graff Diamonds last year.

Colored rough stones of a high enough quality to be turned into fancy color diamonds are becoming more and more rare, as known deposits mature and deplete The price for five-carat colorless round diamonds more than doubled between 2005 and 2018, while yellow gem increases ranged between 28 percent and 87 percent, depending on the color intensity. . Source