UPDATE: Union: Russia’s gold output rises 7% to 317.7 tns in 2017

(Adds details on forecast for 2018 in last two paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Mar 6 (PRIME) -- Russia’s gold production rose about 6.8% on the year to 317.660 tonnes in 2017, Sergei Kashuba, chairman of the Union of Gold Producers of Russia, said on Tuesday in a conference.

Gold producers raised their output by 6.4% on the year to 254.216 tonnes in 2017, while by-product gold production gained 11.6% to 16.459 tonnes, gold scrap production went up 5.6% to 36.98 tonnes, and gold concentrate production rose 13.4% to 10.005 tonnes.

“Russia has been the world’s third largest gold producer over the past years,” Kashuba said.

The union expects Russian gold producers to raise combined gold production by 3.2% on the year to 328 tonnes in 2018, with the average annual price for gold amounting to about U.S. $1,200–1,400 per ounce, he said.

“We produced a record amount of gold in post-Soviet Russia in 2017 of 280.68 tonnes. This year production and by-product output of gold in Russia will grow to 285 tonnes, 8 more tonnes will be produced in concentrates, and about 35 tonnes more will be produced after processing of scrap and wastes,” he said.

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