Murmansk rare metal deposit could be auctioned in 2015
MURMANSK. Feb 3 (Interfax) - An auction for the rights to the Afrikanda rare-earth metals deposit might be announced in 2015, the region's Committee for the Development of Industry and Entrepreneurship Committee told Interfax.
"A draft resolution on an auction in 2015 is being approved," said Oleg Kostenko, the committee's deputy head.
The committee says investment in the project will be at least 8 billion rubles. "Given the economic processes, new calculations might be needed," Kostenko said.
Marina Kovtun, the Murmansk region's governor, has told Interfax that rare-earth metal mining held a lot of promise for the region: the Afrikanda field contains titanium ores and the Fyodorov Tundra deposit contains platinum-group metals.
A first attempt to mine the Afrikanda field was made 30 years ago but this was aborted when radioactive thorium was discovered in the ore. In the past decade, specialists from the Russian Academy of Sciences Kola Research Center's Mining Institute have come up with a method to process the deposit's complex ores.
The institute says the deposit contains 626.2 million tonnes of ore, which can be mined by the open-cast method.
The deposit is located to the southeast of Lake Imandra, close to the Afrikanda railway station, making the Murmansk and Kandalaksha seaports accessible.