Elgacoal acquires control of co with licenses for coal prospecting, around 2.5 bln tonnes of resources

YAKUTSK. Aug 10 (Interfax) - Elgacoal LLC, controlled by businessman Albert Avdolyan's A-Property, has acquired a 67% stake in Undytkan LLC, which has two licenses for geological prospecting and exploration in the vicinity of the Elga coal deposit with overall projected resources of around 2.5 billion tonnes.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Elgacoal acquired 67% of Undytkan on July 1. RG Project LLC, whose beneficial owner is RosGeo, previously owned 50% of the company, and RG Partner LLC, 49% owned by RosGeo and 51% by Dmitry Chepurnoi, owned the other 50%. RG Partner still has a 33% stake in Undytkan following the transaction.

According to the Russian Federal Geological Fund (Rosgeolfond), Undytkan has two licenses for geological prospecting and exploration of the Undytkanskaya and Prigranichnaya coalfields in the vicinity of the Elga coal deposit as of October 2021. According to the Russian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, the projected resources of the Undytkanskaya field total 1.31 billion tonnes of P1 grade coal, and the Prigranichnaya field's projected resources total 1.176 billion tonnes of P1 grade coal.

The Elga coal deposit, located in Yakutia, is the largest in Russia and one of the largest deposits of coking coal in the world. It has reserves of around 2.2 billion tonnes according to JORC. A-Property earlier assessed the cost of developing the deposit at 130 billion rubles.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the Elga coal project is 80% owned by organizations that belong to Avdolyan and 20% owned by his new partner, Elgacoal LLC CEO Alexander Isaev, through Energogroup.