Russian state-owned diamond company Alrosa announced yesterday that it had emerged victorious in an auction over rights to explore and mine two sites in Western Yakutia for diamonds, Rough and Polished reports.

The two diamond licenses, Udachny Peripheral Deluvial Placer and Pyrope Brook, are both located in close proximity to other diamond projects currently under the auspices of Alrosa, and the firm will be able to leverage that fact to increase efficiencies and reduce costs.

Alrosa paid $822,000 for the rights to the first concession and it is said to contain approximately 109,500 carats of rough diamonds. The diamond company paid $3.168 million for the rights to the second concession, thought to contain nearly a million carats of rough diamonds.

Last year Alrosa produced 34.4 million carats of rough stones and earned $4.567 billion for their sale, according to Rough and Polished.