INTERVIEW: Khabarovsk Region to produce 9.55 tns of gold in 2017

KHABAROVSK, Apr 4 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk Region plans to produce 9.55 tonnes of gold in 2017, Nikolai Ishchuk, director of the mineral resource department of the Natural Resources Ministry of the Khabarovsk Region told PRIME in an interview released on Tuesday.

Platinum production can rise 1.6% to 1.55 tonnes, while silver output can fall 15% to 42.7 tonnes.

Combined investment is planned at 9.8 billion rubles in 2017, which is 20% more than in 2016. Government-funded surveys will also continue, Ishchuk said, adding that the Poniyskaya and Delkenskaya areas seem most promising.

Polymetal invested 1.5 billion rubles in the Svetloye ore-dressing plant in 2016. The heap leaching on the plant was stopped for the winter but will restart in April–June, and the 2017 the annual gold production at the plant is expected to increase.

Another, 2.4 billion ruble investment project by Polymetal, Amur Hydrometallurgical Plant, will add autoclave capacity in July–December 2018, which will allow the company to refine 50% of concentrate from the Kyzyl field.

U.K. Highland Gold Mining (HGM) expects to start producing gold on the Blagodatnoye deposit in the Khabarovsk Region in early 2018, Ishchuk said.

He said that Blagodatnoye’s reserves were preliminarily appraised at 30 tonnes in 2016. The field is to become the resource base for the Belaya Gora gold extracting facility of HGM, which is located 50 kilometers away from Blagodatnoye.

HGM plans to invest 920 million rubles to improve the gold extraction technology in 2017.

HGM earlier said that it plans to produce 160 ounces of gold at its deposits in the Khabarovsk Region in 2020.

Russian Platinum invested 536 million rubles in gold development in the region in 2016. The holding can raise gold production to 2 tonnes in the future from 861 kilograms in 2016.

Part of the holding, Amur Zoloto, restarted the operations of the Yubileinaya gold extraction plant on the Krasivoye deposit and started to develop the Perevalnoye deposit. The launch of an ore-dressing plant is to take place in October–December 2017.

(56.1396 rubles – U.S. $1)

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