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According to the four-year agreement between Russia and De Beers, Russia annually supplies to De Beers no less than $550 million of diamonds. Every year Alrosa mines diamonds total of $1.5 billion. Last week, reports Vedomosti newspaper, the diamond market was shocked by the statements made by Alrosa and De Beers management. Thursday the Interfax agency published the report of Dow Jones, which contained the statement made by Alrosa's vice president Sergey Ulin at the press conference on diamond mining in Tel Aviv. Ulin said that in the second half of the year Alrosa is going to start talks with De Beers on a new marketing agreement. Referring to Ulin, Dow Jones reported that the new agreement will not only concern "commercial matters, but cooperation in different areas of diamond business". No details reported by Ulin. In his Friday interview to Interfax the general director of De Beers Centenary Russia Raymond Clarke said that Ulin's statement came as a "total surprise" to him. "We continuously discuss the fulfillment of the current agreement and in the nearest future we did not plan to talk about any new agreement", - noted Clarke. "In his interview to Vedomosti Ulin said that he was misunderstood: "We are not planning any talks with De Beers so far. At the press conference I only said that talks will not be held before the end of this year. Our cooperation with De Beers has broadened and at the conference I said that the new agreement will include new forms of cooperation." Vice president of Alrosa announced that in the second of the year the company intends to start talks on a new marketing agreement with De Beers. /"Vedomosti"/

Source: Finmarket