The Diamond World Is Scrambling to Keep Buying Russian Gems
- Buyers are consulting lawyers about implications of sanctions
- Alrosa sent a delegation to India this week to meet customers
An worker sorts through a collection of rough diamonds at a sorting center in Moscow, Russia
Source: Bloomberg
U.S. sanctions on Russia’s giant diamond miner are causing chaos through the industry, leaving traders and manufacturers hunting for workarounds to keep tapping one of the world’s main sources of precious gems.
Buyers across the big trading centers in Antwerp and Dubai and manufacturing hubs in India have spent the past two weeks consulting lawyers to determine what the U.S. sanctions on Alrosa PJSC mean and how they can continue to buy, according to people familiar with the matter. In the meanwhile, diamonds have stopped flowing from Russian mines to Surat -- the world’s diamond-cutting epicenter -- because Indian banks are unable or unwilling to process payments.