The government of Altai territory, in the Siberian region of Russia, is seeking investors from the West to back a proposed US$1-billion lead-zinc processing plant.
The metallurgical plant would process ore from the Korbalikhinskoye mining region, as well as concentrates from other operations in Siberia.
Supply for the plant would come from the region’s 11 metal deposits, which contain a total of 60 million tonnes grading from 12% to 25% lead-copper-zinc.
At full capacity, the area’s mines produce, on an annual basis, more than 30,000 tonnes of copper concentrate, 120,000 to 140,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate and 20,000 tonnes of copper concentrate, as well as 400 kg of gold and 70 tonnes of silver.
The area’s largest deposit is the Korbalikhinskoye, reserves at which were last estimated to be 21.3 million tonnes, containing 328,000 tonnes copper, 466,400
tonnes lead and 2.2 million tonnes zinc. The deposit also hosts gold, silver, cadmium, bismuth, selenium, thallium and gallium.
What may discourage investors, however, is the revocation of the rights to mine the Korbalikhinskoye deposit from Uralinvest, a Russian company. The company secured the mining rights to the deposit in 1993, pledging to raise foreign capital and develop a US$385-million mining and metallurgical operation.
At the time, the company said it would be able to process up to 1.2 million tonnes of ore per year at a recovery rate of 86%. The territory’s Commission for Mineral Development revoked the licence following unspecified complaints from law enforcement and territory officials.
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