Rosnedra allocates seven properties for regional exploration, first licenses go to Polyus, Nordgold, AGD Diamonds
MOSCOW. June 18 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Mineral Resources Agency (Rosnedra) has allocated seven properties for regional geological exploration and issued the first licenses to leading gold miners PJSC Polyus and Nordgold and diamond miner AGD Diamonds, Rosnedra head Oleg Kazanov said in an interview with Interfax ahead of the 2025 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
"At this point we're carefully carrying out the first phase. This year we've allocated seven properties for regional exploration, creating qualifying requirements for companies allowed into these types of activities. This will be large companies with proven work experience and amount of financing for the designated purposes. The first such licenses were received by the companies of the groups Polyus, Nordgold, AGD Diamonds, Neryungri-Metallik [also of Nordgold Group] and others. The geography [ranges] from Arkhangelsk Region to Magadan and Kamchakta," Kazanov said.
The law that gives private companies the right to engage in regional geological exploration work with their own funds was passed in December 2023 and went into effect on September 1, 2024.
"But the mechanism has only just begun to work. It has strong sides and also problems that market participants are raising," Kazanov said.
"This mechanism creates a super-declarative principle that operates over very large areas. On one hand, we're allowing the resource user into a huge area and it's great that he will look for potentially interesting zones there at his own expense. On the other hand, this large territory is removed from other types of geological exploration work and becomes inaccessible to other resource users," he said.
Initially, resource developers will engage in regional geological exploration only for solid mineral resources, Kazanov said. "Such simplified mechanisms turned out not to be needed for hydrocarbons. Qualified vertically integrated oil companies that have exploration workloads for many years work in oil and gas," he said.
