Russian diamond miner Alrosa's net profit more than doubles

MOSCOW, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Russian state-owned diamond mining group Alrosa, preparing for a share sale within the next few weeks, said on Monday its second-quarter net profit more than doubled because currency losses had halved.

Alrosa's flotation of 14 percent more of its shares would take its free-float to 25 percent and could value the business at up to $15 billion. The miner competes with Anglo American (LSE: AAL.L - news) 's De Beers, the world's No. 1 diamond producer by revenue. Alrosa is the top producer by output in carats.

The Russian group's second-quarter 2013 net profit was 8.4 billion roubles ($257 million), up from 3.5 billion for the same period a year ago, and revenue rose 9 percent to 42.8 billion.

Foreign exchange losses fell to 6 billion roubles, the company said, and profits also got a boost of 495 million ($15 million) from the sale of its stake in an iron ore project.

Russia's largest steelmaker Evraz (Other OTC: EVRZF - news) , owned partly by Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, bought a controlling stake in Alrosa's iron ore project Timir for 4.95 billion roubles ($160 million) in early April.

Evraz is set to make three payments of 1.5 billion roubles, one this month, one in March and another in July, Alrosa said.

Alrosa's Moscow share sale, which the Russian government has been promising since the mid-2000s, is due this autumn.