– What was the reason of the ore-mining division reorganization?
– After the “Fulushima-1”catastrophe the prices for uranium production fell a great deal. The decision to establish the division was made: foreign assets were to be put to Uranium One Holding N. V., while Russian – to be left in ARMZ. Today this process is about to be completed. To my mind, from the point of view of potential realization of opportunities of selling uranium, this is the best scheme.
– How big the uranium resources are believed to be?
– A mine lifespan is about 20-25 years, the richest deposits are already mined out. Now it’s the turn of those having less uranium in them. However we have other assets. Dalur, for instance, where they use in situ leaching. This is a very efficient and competitive deposit, valuable at the market, since the self-cost of uranium mining there is consistent with world analogs. In situ leaching reduces expenses; this uranium is sold with profit.
– The ARMZ production is competitive, isn’t it?
– It is, but only while the self-cost is high. Most of Russian uranium is extracted at the Priargunsky Mining and Chemical Union (PIMCU). Neither Dalur nor Hiagda are not at design capacity yet. When this happens, part of the charge will be shifted there and PIMCU will cut its production down a little.
– One of the main PIMCU project implemented in recent years is mine 8 first stage start-up. What does it give you, what do you expect?
– This is the first mine started after the USSR fell apart. The ore there contains a lot of uranium, which means that the product self-cost will be less than at #2. More up-to-date equipment, domestic and imported, will be used there, some already installed.
– Is natural uranium extraction going to stay the main holding’s occupation?
– It is, but we’ll be looking for new opportunities, other options to make money. Thus, now we are trying to process purple ore. Those are uranium mine dumps, containing a lot of mineral resources. We have 6 million tons of them.
– Last year ARMZ entered “Pavlovskoe” project – creating production complex based on silver-bearing lead-zinc deposit at the Yuzhny Island in Novaya Zemlya with mineral resources base of 9,5 million tons of ore. On what stage is the project today?
– This year we’ve had our exploration survey. We’ll add from 3 to 5 million tons to the resource base. Next year we’ll have geological exploration works and from 2017 we’ll start building ore-dressing and processing enterprise.
– In 2013 ARMZ started rare-earth metals installment in Dalur, Kurgan region. What elements are you going to extract?
– For now this is just test production, basically there is scandium extraction there. The enterprise has all technologies needed, it soon will be industrialized. Scandium is needed for defense and space industry – electronics, aircraft and rocket bodies etc.
– According to Denis Manturov, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Rosatom is expected to take an active part in the state program for rare-earth metal development and production until 2020. What is the role of ARMZ in it?
– We are trying to make our part bigger. Shortly we are going to meet with the Minister Manturov. Like us, he is very interested in developing the REG sector in Russia. However we have to understand which rare-earth materials exactly are in demand. Once we know it, we’ll decide what our further actions will be.
– You were appointed director of the holding a relatively short time ago. Have you already got on to the new rhythm, set out priority areas?
– For now I’m still familiarizing. Before I used to work at the Pavlovskoye deposit, there everything was quite clear. Here there’s a whole bunch of tasks and information. I’d like to pay more attention to enterprises, travel, watch, talk to staff, step-up the work on-site, so that people understand what exactly we do and how we do that. So we all work for the same cause.
