ALROSA's preliminary sales figure for September was about $400 million worth of rough and polished diamonds; therefore, for the first nine months of 2012, ALROSA has sold about $3.18 billion worth of goods, which is less than one year ago.  According to Rapaport records, ALROSA sold about $3.16 billion worth of rough and polished diamonds from January to August 2011.

During a management meeting held earlier today, ALROSA’s president, Fyodor Andreev,  noted the start of a global diamond market recovery and is subsequently  predicting higher demand for rough diamonds in the fourth quarter.

In other company news, ALROSA updated the schedule of its Mir underground drainage level construction, confirming that the first stage will be completed in October, and citing safety measures, work on two upper levels have been suspended. Normal operations are being maintained on other levels of Mir underground mine, according to meeting minutes.

ALROSA is working on the artificial reinforcement of watertight properties of the partition between the bottom of the Mir underground mine and its underground levels.

Following the tragic death of workers at the Udachny mine due to an explosion from an methane-air mixture,  ALROSA's management concluded that  there had been a gross violation of safety rules and that the shift had been permitted to work in the airless mine face.  ALROSA's management resolved to create a system of ''triple control'' over enforcing safety regulations, which includes hand held gas analyzers, a system of machinery and mechanisms to force work stoppages when the permissible methane concentration is exceeded, and share continuous data transmission on air conditions in the mine face.