Pressure on the new head of Alrosa, Fyodor Andreyev to boost rough diamond sales by discounting the price made a prompt appearance in the Russian press, almost within hours of Andreyev taking his seat on July 15.



"The new president of Alrosa has decided to increase diamond sales using discounts," claimed an anonymous source "close to Alrosa's supervisory board" and reported by a Moscow newspaper last week.



"A change of marketing policy is being discussed:” the newspaper reported a representative of the Ministry of Finance as saying - without giving details.



Another Russian press agency has claimed that diamond giant Alrosa plans to reopen its selling window, closed since December, with a $50 million contract, and a target of $2 billion worth of diamond sales for the full year.



According to Alrosa's spokesman, Andrei Polyakov, and diamond manufacturers in Moscow, this is premature and wishful thinking.



“We cannot speak about discounts while the diamond orders aren’t yet formed,” Polyakov told PolishedPrices.



“But we have plans for the future.”



Polyakov said it is "too early to speak of changes in the company's diamond pricing and marketing policy if we connect these changes with Mr Andreyev’s arrival, because he’s been in his post for two weeks only."



“The pricing policy changes when the situation in the diamond market changes, not the company’s president,” he said.



Because Alrosa has been selling its diamond output this year only to the state stockpile agency Gokhran, and the pricing formula and terms may allow resale by Alrosa if the international diamond market revives, there is no telling what the $2 billion estimate means, either in terms of resale from Gokhran stocks, or direct sale to domestic diamond cutters or international buyers. For the time being, Andreyev is making no public statements or commitments.



Sources close to Alrosa say that Sergei Uhlin, one of the longest serving veterans in the diamond company, will continue to head marketing, strategy and sales.



There is uncertainty about the role to be played by Vladlen Nogovitsyn, whom ex CEO Sergei Vybornov recalled from Hong Kong, and appointed just before his own exit from the diamond company.



A well known Russian diamond manufacturer told PolishedPrices that he expects Andreyev to resolve the uncertainty quite quickly.



Separately, Valery Morozov, head of Ruis Diamonds, Lev Leviev's Moscow manufacturer, said; "We are ready to buy diamonds for $10 million per month, but the price should correspond to the market realities."



A source at Kristall, the largest of the Russian diamond manufacturers said that the pricing formula Vybornov had been proposing before his departure - the Ministry of Finance price book plus 17% - was impossible for diamond cutters to accept, but that if the price came down, Kristall would be ready to buy diamonds.



Before last year's crash, Kristall and Ruis accounted for most of Alrosa's domestic diamond sales, and up to a third of all sales.



Another source said the diamond pricing issue can hardly be described as one of discounting, but rather of determining what the current international market is ready to pay for Alrosa goods, if they are offered for sale.



According to Alrosa’s Polyakov, "there are three major sales streams: Gokhran (state stockpile agency), which is now a very important instrument of support for the diamond company; long-term contracts, and we have quite a lot of them; and the home market."



"Thanks to the improving market situation, [domestic diamond sales] business is now being developed," he said.