Russian Copper Company (RCC), the country’s third largest copper producer, may acquire 50% in the Udokan copper deposit, Alisher Usmanov, the founder of USM Holdings, which owns Baikal Mining Company, the operator of the Udokan deposit, said on April 12.
“We are in active talks with banks and partners from Russian Copper Company on cooperation in development of the field. The negotiations are run by Baikal Mining Company, we are open to cooperation and start of construction of an ore dressing plant,” he said.
He added that RCC had a reliable experience in building copper processing facilities and was able to make them more efficient than other market participants.
The Udokan deposit is one of the world’s largest copper deposits. An industrial facility to be built on the deposit will have a capacity of 36 million tons of ore a year. The deposit’s mineral resources are estimated at 2.3 billion tons with an average copper content of 1.06%, and copper of 24.6 million tons under JORC. (Prime/Ukrainian metal)
