Russian miner Alrosa has reported that it repaid $600 mln of the bank loans received from VTB Bank in 2012 and extended in 2014 until October 2018. The amount was repaid with cash from the Company’s operations, Alrosa said.

With this, the miner said that its total loans and borrowings had come down from $2.3 bln to $1.7 bln, while its average interest rate decreased from 6.6% to 6.3%.

 The Company said that its existing long-term partnership with the companies of VTB Group (with cooperation on the raising of debt financing being just one example) will continue going forward.

“As part of the conservative liquidity management policy, Alrosa prepaid long-term bank loans in the total amount of $600 mln, which allowed us to reduce the average cost of debt and ensure a comfortable debt repayment schedule”, said Igor Kulichik, CFO, Vice President of the Company.