Russian-Chinese venture might build coal mine for Karakan Invest by 2015
KEMEROVO. Dec 10 (Interfax) - Chinese-Russian joint venture China Coal Mining Construction Group-Siberia Ltd might build a coal mine with annual capacity of 3 million-4 million tonnes for LLC Karakan Invest by 2015 and simultaneously act as investor for the project, Karakan Invest board chairman Georgy Krasnyansky said in an interview posted on the company's website.
He said the two companies are considering designing and building a deep and open-pit mining complex in Kemerovo Region. "We are currently operating an open-pit mine [Karakan West], the capacity of which is 3 million tonnes per year, while the overall reserves of the deposit are 305 million tonnes to minus 100 meters and 850 million tonnes to minus 300 meters. By 2015, we will bring it up to 4 million tonnes per year. At the same time, we can see wonderful reserves for setting up underground mining, which will begin to be developed when a deep mine is built. Our Chinese partners will build it. It will be their investment (on a repayable basis) in shaft-sinking and tunnelling and coal mining equipment," Krasnyansky said.
Karakan Invest told Interfax that 11 billion rubles will be invested in the development of the project and construction of the mine, including 3.5 billion rubles for the project itself and 7.5 billion rubles for shaft-sinking and tunnelling. There are also plans to build infrastructure, including a rail line at a cost of 3 billion rubles.
The project is expected to be completed by 2015. The mine will have capacity to produce 3 million-4 million tonnes of D rank (long-flame) coal used in the power industry.
There are also plans to build an above-ground complex, including sorting facility, to improve the quality of mined coal and prepare it for sale.
"We have large coal seams and Chinese mining equipment, like no other, is ideally suited for mining technology with discharge of coal," Krasnyansky said.
The overall capacity of the mining complex will total up to 10 billion rubles of coal per year.
Karakan Invest is a holding company that is establishing and development the Karakan coal and energy cluster, which includes mining, processing and power generating facilities based on the Karakan coal deposit in the Kemerovo Region town of Yevtino, according to the company's website. The company is 99.9% owned by Cyprus-based Blitzen Trading Limited, with Krasnyansky holding the other 0.1% of shares, the SPARK-Interfax database shows. The holding company includes CJSC Belovskaya Mine, trading house LLC Belkommerts and engineering company LLC Promyshlennik.
Belovskaya Mine launched the first phase of the Karakan West mine with capacity of 2 million tonnes of coal per year in 2010 at a cost of about 1 billion rubles. The mine is part of the Karakan coal and energy complex.
Belovskaya Mine in August won an auction for the rights to explore for and mine
hard coal at the Deep Karakan section of the Karakan coal field, with reserves of D, DG and G rank thermal coal of 143 million tonnes. Mine management said that there were no plans to build a separate mine, but that the existing Karakan West mine would have both open-pit and deep mining sections.
China Coal Mining Construction Group-Siberia Ltd is 80% owned by China's Third Construction Company, and 20% by LLC Sibenergo, which in turn is owned by private individuals, according to the SPARK-Interfax database.
