Institute of Mining, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Khabarovsk, Russia:

G. I. Arkhipov, Candidate of Geologo-Mineralogical Sciences, arhipov@igd.khv.ru

The iron ore resources in the Russian Far East make round 50 Bt, including over 7 BT of explored and ranked reserves under mining. The first ton of iron ore was produced at an open pit mine of Kimkanand-Sutar Mining and Processing Works, IRC, RJC Group in July 2010. The ore concentration up to the iron content of 65% started in 2015. By the end of 2016 the mining and processing works will reach the total capacity of 3.2 Mt of ore. Since 2008 IRC has been producing titanium–magnetite concentrate (iron content of 62.5%) in amount of 1 Mt per year and ilmenite concentrate (40% TiO₂) in annual amount of 180 thousand tons at the Kuranakh deposit in the Amur Region, and ships the products to China; also, the company has prepared the Garinskoe and Bolshoi Seim deposits for development. Yakutia implements Timir project of iron ore mining at four deposits, as well as Mechel projects of iron ore exploration, appraisal and extraction at Sutam, Pioner and Sivaglinskoe deposits. The region lacks full-cycle metallurgical plants. The ever-increasing demands of the regional economy for various metal products are satisfied by shipment from the west of Russia and from foreign countries, which greatly raises the cost of the metal-consuming projects implemented in the region. The Amurmetal company located in Komsomolsk-on-Amur is inefficient and fails to cover the regional requirements in metal products. One of the key challenges is the sequence of mining iron ore reserves to supply full-scale ferrous metallurgy; the other problem is selection of optimal capacity and structure of the industry. For the sake of the regional and national economy, accelerated construction of modern metallurgical plant and its introduction into service in the Amur Region is required, as well as the termination of the export-oriented disintegration of the iron ore supplies base cumulated for decades.

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