Investors now have a chance to bet directly on diamond mining

Investors now have a chance to bet directly on diamond mining, as the Russian government moves to spin off a 16 percent stake in Alrosa. When shares start trading Thursday afternoon on the Micex stock exchange in Russia, it will provide an opening to a long-secluded and once extremely secretive business.

The new technology tends to make everything that comes out of the ground, whether oil or iron ore or gemstones, more plentiful, not more scarce and forecasts suggest that diamond extraction will grow at a single-digit pace over the next 10 years which would approximately balance the expected new demand from a rising Asian middle class according to mining analysts.

Alrosa and its principal competitor, De Beers set prices through joint sales agreements. The arrangement ended in 2008, when European Union regulators broke up the global diamond agreement, starting a new era for the industry. Although per-carat prices vary, overall diamond prices have more than doubled since 2009. Alrosa priced the shares at 35 rubles, or about $1.09, per common share on Monday, at the bottom of its estimated ruble range. In this new environment, Alrosa, which mines from large and rich gem deposits in Siberia, hopes to attract private investors, as the only large pure-play diamond business.