CaratAlrosa books a $134 million loss and starts idling the pits
Revenue fell 36% to 74.2 billion roubles, about $932.5 million, and the world's largest rough producer swung to a net loss of 10.67 billion roubles, about $134.1 million, from a $490.1 million profit. Several open pits go to care and maintenance this year.
§1Revenue fell twice as fast as cost.
The world's largest diamond producer by volume has stopped making money. Alrosa's first-half accounts show revenue of 74.2 billion roubles, about $932.5 million, down 36% year on year, and a net loss of 10.67 billion roubles, about $134.1 million, against a net profit of 39 billion roubles, about $490.1 million, in the first half of 2025. Cost of sales fell 20% to 69.5 billion roubles, about $873.4 million, which is the whole problem in one line: revenue fell nearly twice as fast as the cost of producing it.
Part of the swing is arithmetic rather than trading. The comparative half carried about 53.1 billion roubles, some $667.3 million, of non-operating income, including roughly 30 billion roubles, about $377 million, from the sale of Alrosa's stake in Angola's Catoca venture. Strip that out and the 2025 base was already a thin operating year dressed up by a disposal. What is not arithmetic is the 36% revenue fall, which is a volume and price statement about rough demand, and it sits alongside De Beers' consolidated realised price of $105 a carat for the same six months, down 32%, which this desk filed on 31 July.
§2A disposal flattered the base.
The operational response is the part the trade should read twice. Alrosa is preparing to place several open-pit mines into care and maintenance during 2026, and has suspended mining at Severalmaz, which accounts for roughly 10% of Russian diamond output. Care and maintenance is not a closure and it is not a pause in the Venetia sense. It is a mine kept alive at minimum cost with the option to restart, and it is the cheapest way a producer can take carats out of the market without conceding the reserve. The company has been explicit for months that the intent is supply discipline rather than incapacity.
Care and maintenance is not a closure and it is not a pause in the Venetia sense.
§3Care and maintenance, not closure.
The guidance figure now circulating with this news needs dating honestly, because it is not new. Alrosa's plan to mine 25 to 26 million carats in 2026, down 14% from 29.7 million carats in 2025, was set out by the company's head in December 2025, with the stated reason that it was not a question of capacity but of regulating demand and global inventories. That target has stood for eight months. What changed this week is that the half-year accounts now show what holding it costs, and the answer is a loss.
The two largest rough producers in the world are both shrinking on purpose, and that is the supply story of 2026. De Beers is pausing Venetia and Alrosa is idling open pits, neither because the ore ran out and both because the midstream will not absorb the carats at a price that covers the digging. For a retailer the practical read is on natural rough-fed goods in the 2027 buying calendar, not on today's case: production decisions taken this quarter reach the counter in eighteen months. The figures here come from a single English-language report of Alrosa's half-year filing and no second outlet has yet carried them, which is why they are printed with the source named rather than as settled fact.
The trade, filed to your inbox before the New York open.
Prices, tenders and the one story that moved the industry overnight — read in ninety seconds.
Subscribe free →