Agency to auction Prioskolskoye iron ore field on February 17

MOSCOW, Jan 10 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Mineral Resources Agency has scheduled an auction for a 20-year license for the development of the Prioskolskoye iron ore field with the starting price of 15 billion rubles for February 17, as seen by PRIME in the auction data on Tuesday.

The field’s commercial reserves of iron ore exceed 38 million tonnes under the C1 category and 7 million tonnes under the C2 category, and non-commercial reserves stand at almost 9 million tonnes under the C2 category. Reserves of banded iron formation exceed 424 million tonnes under the B category and amount to almost 1 billion tonnes under the C1 category and 600 million tonnes under the C2 category.

Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works obtained a license for the field in 2006, and planned to build a mining and processing plant worth 2–2.5 billion euros there, which was to cover the company’s demand for iron ore for the next 60 years. But it delayed construction several times, and returned the license in 2015.

(70.3002 rubles – U.S. $1)

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