Russian diamond giant Alrosa posted a performance abstract for the first half of 2010, saying its rough diamond sales exceeded both sale levels of the corresponding period in 2009 and the pre-crisis H1-2007 and H1-2008 volumes.

Diamond sales, it said, exceed pre-crisis level: according to preliminary results, in Q2-2010 the core product sales by Alrosa amounted to $997 million, of which $249.1 million were contributed by sales to the domestic market and $747.9 by export sales.

Rough diamond sales in the first half of 2010 totaled $1.9 billion, of which sales through long-term contracts accounted for 31%. Sales of rough diamonds in the first six months of 2010 exceeded both the January-June 2009 and the pre-crisis levels. The 2010 target for diamond sales is set at $3.3 billion.

Alrosa produced eight million carats of rough diamonds in Q2-2010. In the first half of 2010 the Company’s diamond production totaled 16.6 million carats, which is as much as in H1 2009.

According to the diamond miner, the average interest rate of allocated debt decreased from 12.4% to 8.1%. Loan debt decreased from $3.79 billion to $3.46 billion.

The Alrosa posting added that its revenue for this period is expected at RUB 53.7 billion, proceeds from sales - RUB 18.7 billion and net income is expected to reach RUB 2.5 billion.