UMMC planning capex of at least 61.6 bln rubles in 2013
MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - Urals Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC), Russia's biggest copper producer, plans to invest at least as much as last year's figure of 61.6 billion rubles in industrial construction, reconstruction and modernization of production facilities in 2013, the company's head of strategic planning, Gennady Skopov said on the sidelines of the Russian & CIS Metals Summit organized by the Adam Smith Institute.
"I think that investment in 2013 will be no less than in 2012," Skopov told reporters.
He said UMMC increased investment in its businesses to 61.6 billion rubles in 2012 from 37.1 billion rubles in 2011. Of this investment, 55.6% went into nonferrous metallurgy, 37.4% into the coal business and 5.2% into ferrous metallurgy.
In the nonferrous metallurgy sector, 71% of investment went into developing the resource base, overhauling processing plants and development of new deposits; 24.8% into overhauling and modernizing metallurgical plants; and 4.2% into other areas.
In his talk at the summit, Skopov said that UMMC's LLC Bashkirskaya Med will begin preparations in 2013 for the construction of the Yubileiny and Podolsky deep mines, and production at the Novo-Shemursky open-pit mine is expected to increase to 2 million tonnes of ore per year.
Investment in overhauling facilities at the Gaisky GOK mine and processing plant will total about 23 billion rubles by the end of 2013, he said. Annual production of copper in copper concentrate will reach 90,000 tonnes.
The company is also continuing to overhaul the Svyatogor chemical and metallurgical complex, where investment is expected to total about 5 billion rubles. The company plans to begin designing and building a new smelting complex based on an Ausmelt furnace that is expected to go into operation in 2017.
UMMC is also building a plant in Tyumen to produce 545,000 tonnes of rolled products per year that is expected to open in 2013. Overall investment in this project will total 20.4 billion rubles.
