24 April 2013
14:13 IST
Diamonds & Gems · Russia
Alrosa diamond production hits 34.4 million carats in 2012
The Russian producer’s 2012 output put it level with De Beers by volume, on a very different mix of stones.
Diamonds & Gems · 2011 – 2016
Diamond news archive — Alrosa, rough production and the carat figures
Diamonds were the smallest section in the archive and the one where a single number does the most work: rough production is reported in carats, value is realised in dollars, and the two rank the world's producers in a different order.
1 restored dispatch 2011–2016 covered
Diamond news archive: production, and one large idea
The diamond news file is short by comparison with gold or silver, and almost all of it turns on a single distinction: production is measured in carats, value is realised in dollars, and the relationship between the two is a matter of sorting rather than arithmetic. A producer can lead the world in carats and be second in revenue at the same time, and most of the apparent contradictions in diamond reporting dissolve once the unit is stated.
That is what makes the Alrosa figure the anchor of the diamond news kept here. The Russian producer's 34.4 million carats for 2012 is a clean, checkable, mine-gate production number, measured where the stones leave the ground rather than where they are sold, which is what makes it usable at all. It is not a valuation, and the restored dispatch is careful not to let it become one.
Where to check this
This page is current writing, so its mechanisms can be checked against the bodies that publish them. Figures inside the restored dispatches stay as filed.
- Kimberley Process The Annual Rough Diamond Summary, which reports participant production and trade in both carats and value, the two units this section keeps apart.
Capacity claims and what they are worth
Several stories in this section are statements of potential rather than of output. Zimbabwe's claim that it could supply a quarter of world demand from the Marange fields is a capacity claim; the Chinese and Siberian finds are resource claims. All three are legitimate news, and all three needed the qualification the trade press of the period often omitted: a resource is not a reserve, a reserve is not production, and production is not sales. The restored pages keep the original claim intact and state which of the four it was.
Coloured stones
Coloured gemstones appear only occasionally in the diamond news of these years, usually attached to a jewellery-demand story from India or the Gulf. They are kept in this section rather than given their own because the archive never built a real file on them, and a hub with two thin entries would be worse than an honest consolidation.
For the mining side of the same industry, covering grades, shafts, output and the difference between a resource and a reserve, see the mining section. For how any of these producers reach public markets, see company news.
The episodes this section covered
2011–2016- December 2011 A Chinese find is reported with a stated capacity of around a million carats, on the pattern that made rough-production figures the section's standard unit.
- May 2012 Zimbabwe states it could supply a quarter of global diamond demand from the Marange fields, a claim about capacity rather than about sales, and reported as such.
- October 2012 The Popigai astrobleme in northern Siberia is described as holding impact diamonds in quantities measured in centuries of supply, most of it industrial grade.
- April 2013 Alrosa reports 34.4 million carats for 2012, putting it level with or ahead of De Beers by volume on a very different mix of stones, which is a ranking that reverses once value rather than weight is counted.
Restored diamonds & gems dispatches
original addresses, original dates Full indexWhat the diamond and coloured-stone file holds from 2011 to 2016: Alrosa's annual output, world rough production in carats, and the jewellery demand that carried the coloured stones. The section was never large, and consolidating it is more honest than inventing a page per stone.
Questions about diamonds & gems in this archive
Who was the largest diamond producer in the years this archive covers?
It depends entirely on the unit. By volume of rough, meaning carats out of the ground, Alrosa was at or above De Beers from about 2012, reporting 34.4 million carats for that year. By the value of what was sold, De Beers remained ahead, because its mix contained a greater proportion of large, high-clarity gem stones. Both statements are true at once, which is why the production dispatch states the unit before the ranking.
Why are diamond production figures given in carats rather than in tonnes or dollars?
Because carats are the only unit that can be counted at the mine gate without valuing anything. A carat is a fifth of a gram, so a large producer's annual output is a few tonnes of stone, a number too small to be useful and too crude to distinguish grades. Value cannot be stated at the mine either, because it depends on sorting, cutting and the market at the time of sale. Carats are the honest measure of production; dollars are the honest measure of revenue; nothing sensible converts one to the other.
What are impact diamonds and why did the Popigai figures sound so large?
They are diamonds formed by the shock pressure of a meteorite strike rather than by slow crystallisation at depth. Popigai in northern Siberia is a very large impact structure, and the diamonds in it are abundant, small, and mostly of industrial grade, good for abrasives and cutting tools, not for jewellery. That is why a figure sounding like centuries of world supply did not move the gem market: it is a different product in the same mineral.
Zimbabwe said Marange could supply a quarter of world diamond demand. What was that claim worth?
It was a capacity claim, which is the weakest of the four things a diamond figure can be. A resource is stone geologists are confident is in the ground; a reserve is the part of it worth extracting on current terms; production is what actually left the ground; sales are what a buyer paid for. The Marange statement belonged to the second of those at best and was offered as though it were the fourth, and that gap is what the reporting of the period tended to leave out. The restored pages keep the claim exactly as it was made and state which of the four it was, which is the only treatment that lets a reader judge it.