Russia offering major iron ore license for 2.3 bln rubles
MOSCOW. Aug 11 (Interfax) - The Russian Federal Subsurface Resources Agency (Rosnedra) is offering the license to a major iron ore field, thought to contain over 6 billion rubles of rich ore in the Belgorod region at a starting price of 2.254 billion rubles this autumn.
The deadline for applications to bid at the tender for the Chernyanskoye field is September 12. Technical and economic proposals must be submitted by October 21 and the tender results should be unveiled November 24.
The field is 5 km from the Chernyanka station in the Belgorod region, which is home to some of Russia's biggest iron ore fields.
The Chernyanskoye field contains two main seams, Tsentralnaya and Perifericheskaya. Resources were appraised in keeping with the State Reserves Commission (GKZ) guidelines valid for 1967-1971. The field contains 170.253 million tonnes of rich ores to A+B+C1 classification and 5.966 billion tonnes C2; and off-balance C1 - 448.8 million tonnes and C2 - 28.5 million tonnes. The field's A+B+C1 quartzite ores total 1.738 billion tonnes, and off-balance reserves are C1 - 449 million tonnes and C2 - 1.163 billion tonnes.
The license area is 5.97 square km.
The winner must draft and obtain approval for a technical project within three years of the license being registered and start building within 42 months. Commercial mining of rich ores must begin in 90 months and design capacity must be achieved in 114 months. Commercial mining of quartzites must begin in 138 months and capacity must be achieved in 162 months.
Reports said in the spring of 2011 that Ukraine's Industrial Union of Donbass was thinking of developing the Chernyanskoye field as a source of iron ore for its Alchevsk steel works in Luhansk.
The Metalloinvest holding's Lebedinsky GOK , Novolipetsk Steel's (NLMK) Stoilensky GOK and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) mine iron ore or hold iron ore licenses in the Belgorod region. Lebedinsky GOK thought about bidding for the Chernyanskoye field in 2006, when the cost of developing it was estimated at 120 billion rubles.