GBDX..would be nice if they have a deal with Alrosa...some think so.. :)))
"Alrosa is Russia's largest diamond company engaged in exploration, mining, manufacture and sales of diamonds and one of the world's major rough diamond producers.
The company accounts for about 100 percent of all rough diamonds produced in Russia and for about 20 percent of the world's rough diamond output..."
Kremlin eyes Russian diamond giant Alrosa
9/25/2006
MIRNY (Russia), Sept 24 (AFP): As the world's second-largest diamond producer, Russia's Alrosa has already made its mark on world markets. But for the Kremlin, this is just the beginning.
The Russian state is aiming to transform this secretive group into Russia's latest national champion, a mining giant that will branch out into metals and hydrocarbons and push Russia's economic expansion deep into Africa.
Alrosa is "a company of strategic importance," Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in February, placing Alrosa alongside state gas monopoly Gazprom and state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, two pillars of Russia's increasingly Kremlin-directed economy.
And though Alrosa, which produces 25 per cent of the world's raw diamonds, is currently "one of the most closed groups" it will become more "open and public," said Kudrin, who is also chairman of the group's board of directors.
In the meantime, the Russian state plans to reorganise the company and consolidate it with other mining assets.
The Russian state "should receive 50 per cent of the company ... by the end of the year," Alrosa's general director Alexander Nichiporuk said this week in eastern Siberia's Yakutia region, home to most of the group's diamond mines.
The Russian state currently owns 37 per cent of the company's shares, and state bank Vneshtorgbank recently purchased another 10 per cent that should wind up in Kremlin hands.
But Moscow faces fierce opposition from local authorities in Yakutia, Russia's largest region, who do not want to cede their 40-per cent stake in the company.
Yakutia got its share of Alrosa via a secret decree in President Boris Yeltsin's time, and fears that losing it would mean the end of its economic autonomy from Moscow.
But the Kremlin has set its sights on Alrosa as part of its plan to re-establish control over key sectors of the economy that were yielded in the 1990s either to oligarchs or to regional administrations, as in Alrosa's case.
Alrosa is likely to serve as "an outpost for consolidating the state's assets in Yakutia," an immensely resource-rich region, and in time become "a mining champion," Troika Dialog analyst Alexander Kudrin said.
The diamond producer has recently acquired half of the Russian oil and gas company Sakhaneftegaz and plans to extract oil in Angola, as well buy up coal and gold deposits.
financialexpress-bd.com. |
