Korf, Koryakia — Eastern Russia and western Alaska were still part of one continent 150 million years ago, so it isn’t altogether surprising that some of their placer platinum deposits are nearly identical.
Most of the placer platinum mining at Alaska’s Goodnews Bay was over by the 1980s, but on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula it has only been under way for a few years because the region was a closed military district until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
However, platinum is still considered a strategic resource in Russia and a bill declassifying information about platinum group metals was only passed by the Russian Duma in 2003.
After more than a decade of mining, 45 tonnes (1.5 million oz.) of platinum have been produced in the remote Koryakia region, at the northern end of the Kamchatka peninsula, and an estimated 15-20 more tonnes are on the way.
Few foreigners have seen placer platinum mines in Koryakia so it was a treat for the Alaska Miners Association to bring 13 people here in August as guests of mining company
The KGD offices for the project are in the village of Korf, and anyone going to work at, or visiting, the area’s various placer platinum sites must travel a half-hour from the village via the Russian Far East’s workhorse, the twin-turbine Mi-8 transport helicopter, with its 24-person capacity.
Most of the platinum KGD recovers comes either in the form of fines or coarse, tiny pieces of isoferroplatinum no more than 30 millimetres in diameter.
The average mined grade is 0.28 gram platinum per cubic metre, so it was a big surprise in June when one of the washing plants caught a whopping 1.2-kg (38-oz.) nugget. It will be handed over to the Russian government, and possibly displayed in a museum.
The mine’s usual product is sorted into 15-kg bags, about the size of a deflated soccer ball, each worth about US$450,000. Employees pass through a security screening process before they can work with the washed platinum.
The lode platinum mineralization occurs in a body of dunite — an ultramafic, igneous rock — and KGD plans to further explore for these hard-rock sources of the placer platinum.
Allowing Alaskans to see the Russian platinum mines could bring benefits. Steve Borell, a mining engineer and executive director of the Alaska Miners Association, had some advice on catching larger nuggets: “They’re going to have to look at a nugget trap. Alaska miners have been doing that for a long time. . . they could also install metal detectors,” he said.
KGD uses two different types of washing plants, depending on the type of rock being processed. One is a large rotating tube called a trommel, which catches platinum fines, while a rocker box is used to remove larger rocks before the remaining material goes to a sluice box. An estimated 94-96% of the platinum is successfully recovered.
Contrary to common belief in the West, Russian environmental requirements are extremely stringent, and the various taxes on mining operations are high.
Still, KGD’s ties with influential people may have helped it to negotiate Russia’s bureaucratic labyrinths. The company’s former general manager, Vladimir Loginov, went on to become governor of Koryakia until March of this year, when he became the first regional governor to be fired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, reportedly for mismanaging the heat and electricity sector.
Putin intends to merge Koryakia and Kamchatka into one region, and a referendum on the issue is due to be held in October.
Furthermore, now that Putin has the power to select regional governors, his envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District has suggested that he might appoint oligarch Viktor Vekselberg governor of the united region. Vekselberg, an owner of aluminum giant SUAL and a major shareholder of Russian-British oil venture TNK-BNP, also owns Renova, which purchased an estimated US$150-million stake in KGD earlier this year.
KGD is currently having its reserves audited and put into the Western format with the intention of holding an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market.
The company holds licences to develop several deposits in Kamchatka, including the Ametistovoye gold deposit, which it almost sold to London-based
In Korf, KGD officials gave a technical presentation to the Alaska Miners Association group, highlighted by marine scientist Sergei Bakharev’s explanation of his experimental system that uses acoustic devices at the mine’s settling ponds — the first place in the country where this experiment is being conducted.
These acoustic devices are placed both at and below the surface of the pond. Under the impact of carefully-timed acoustic waves, clay and silt particles suspended in the pond waters aggregate into larger groups. No chemicals are involved in the process.
“Tiny particles of clay are most dangerous for salmon eggs because they cover the fish eggs and gills,” Bakharev said. “We connect these tiny particles to larger particles, and they settle to the bottom.”
The Alaska Miners Association’s visit to Russia could not have been organized without the expertise of Tom Bundtzen, a Fairbanks geologist who has developed many contacts in Russia’s Far East since his first trip here in 1989.
AMA Executive Director Steve Borell, on his second visit to Russian mines, was impressed by KGD’s transformation from a group of Soviet exploration geologists to a growing mining company that strives to meet international standards.
“You have to give them credit, it was a big risk,” said Borell. “It was not in their history to be entrepreneurs. To me it’s a tremendous success story.”
— In an upcoming issue: Sarah Hurst’s on-site report from KoryakGeoldobycha’s new Aginskoye gold mine. It is Kamchatka’s first modern hard-rock mine and, after a long struggle, due to open later this year. Hurst is a freelance journalist based in Anchorage, Alaska.
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