Russia. Atomredmetzoloto is about to organize gold production at the Elkonsky uranium deposit

Atomredmetzoloto, a part of the state corporation Rosatom, has decided to organize gold production at the Elkonsky uranium and ore cluster in Yakutia. They plan to start the development of one of the largest uranium deposits in the world amidst the drop of prices on uranium by 30% after an accident at a Japan nuclear plant “Fukusima-1”. As they stated to FederalPress in the press-service of the government of the republic, there has been taken technological and management decisions for associated gold production at the deposit Lunnoye at present. A spokesman for Atomredmetzoloto said that the possibilities to approach the market of projects with the high level of prime cost decreased due to the accident at a nuclear plant “Fukusima”, which has resulted in the reduction of uranium prices by 30%. At the same time, a successful development of the Lunnoye deposit brings hopes. It has the similar mineral composition and genesis. Balance resources make up 400 tons of uranium and 3 tons of gold. Successful accompanying gold mining by means of heap leaching allowed ARMZ to diversify the production. The experience includes gradual construction with the division of the project into stages. According to the government of Yakutia, the management of ARMZ will consider the scenario of the gradual development of the Elkonsky deposit with a speedy launch of the production capacities into operation and higher technical-and-economic indices of the project. Together with the optimization of the indices in general there will be increased the priming rate of the project documentation at its first stage of development. As FederalPress stated, the designing of the Elkonsky GMK of 5 thousand tons of uranium production capacity a year was planed to finish up by the end of the year. An Investment Fund of Russia has directed 7 billion roubles for documents preparation. The enterprise is to become one of the largest in the world on the production of uranium. According to the World Nuclear Association, there were produced about 3.5 thousand tons of uranium a year in Russia in 2008-2010. http://www.geonews.com.ua/index.cgi?a=43265 Translated by Iraida Idiyatova