WorleyParsons to draft plans for new facilities at Evraz's Kachkanarsky mine
NIZHNY TAGIL. April 3 (Interfax) - Engineering firm WorleyParsons will complete the plans for the construction of new production facilities at the Sobstvenno-Kachkanarskoye deposit for OJSC Evraz Kachkanarsky Ore Mining and Processing Plant (KGOK) in the third quarter of 2012, the head of Evraz Plc' mining division, Konstantin Lagutin told reporters on Monday.
The company will spend 180 million rubles this year on the planning and design phase for the new facilities at the deposit.
The company has approved $21 million of investment at present. "This is, of course, kopecks. This is for basic design and survey work and planning," Lagutin said.
It was reported earlier that Evraz planned to invest about 33 billion rubles by 2017 in the construction of additional KGOK facilities at the Sobstvenno-Kachkanarskoye deposit. The project will increase KGOK's ore production capacity by 50% to 63 million tonnes.
KGOK planned to begin mining ore at the Sobstvenno-Kachkanarskoye deposit in 2014.
Evraz anticipates the Sobstvenno-Kachkanarskoye deposit will produce 11 million tonnes of commercial iron ore products per year. The project is supposed to replace the depleted Gusevogorskoye deposit that KGOK is now mining.
KGOK plans to increase production of sintered iron ore and pellets by 2.5% to 9.7 million tonnes in 2012, Lagutin said.
He said KGOK produced 54.1 million tonnes or ore in 2011 and plans to mine 55.2 million tonnes in 2012. Ore production could therefore increase by 2%.
"This year there are plans to mine 55.2 million tonnes of ore, from which produce 9.7 million tonnes of finished product, which will be 2.5% more than last year," Lagutin said.
KGOK is one of the five largest mining operations in Russia. It is currently mining vanadium ore at the Gusevogorskoye deposit. The mine's main customers are the Evraz group's iron and steel plants.