The priority production tasks for this year were discussed at the 20-th meeting of the active functionaries of ALROSA Group held on April 1, 2016, in Mirny.

In his address, ALROSA President Mr. Andrey Zharkov reported that diamond mining by the Group in 2016 may fall within the range from 37 million to 39 million carats. He stressed that possible reduction in diamond mining will have no impact on the employees, and the Company management has no plans to introduce downtime at the enterprises. Reduction in diamond mining will be achieved through the implementation of the employees’ leave schedule. Mr. Zharkov noted that real volumes of diamond mining will hinge on the global demand for rough diamonds.

“Despite the fact that the first quarter of this year was rather positive, and the demand for rough diamonds exceeded the planned target, we are rather conservative as regards the whole year 2016, and we consider one of the key priorities for our sales is not to accumulate stocks. To react to the market conditions adequately, we are considering the diamond mining scenario for 2016 within the range from 37 million to 39 million carats," said Mr. Zharkov.