ARMZ started expanding its sphere of work as early as the last year. At the beginning of the last year the company mined for its first gold at the “Lunnoe” deposit. In October they decided to mine not only for uranium, but also lead and zinc.

That’s when they bought their first ore-mining company from the “Summa” Group, with the development license for the Pavlovsk lead-zinc deposits considered to be the main assets of the company. The total reserve of the deposit is estimated to be 21,4 million tons of metal, with 1,9 million of tons of that being zinc, 0,5 mln of lead and 672 tons of silver.

Diversification – continuation
In February ARMZ announced the start of getting rare-earth metals with uranium mining. The pilot plant for preproduction mining of bulk concentrate from pregnant solutions, achieved during uranium mining, was launched at Dalur enterprise, in the Dalmatovsky district, Kurgan region, the jurisdiction of ARMZ. “The ARMZ strategy, besides uranium production development, suggests business diversification. This project, being the first initiative of the State Corporation in rare-earth metals development segment, has strategic meaning for the whole nuclear industry” – said Tigran Khachaturov, ARMZ vice General Director.

Pure Profit
According to the ARMZ executive director Igor Zhilkin, the new project will also permit to sufficiently raise the “Dalur” economic efficiency. “Without any key investments on our part we will be able to get rare-earth metal concentrate in addition to uranium from the same pregnant solution” – he said. The bulk concentrate of the rare earth metals for processing and end-product preparation (99,9% scandium oxide and scandium-aluminium alloy) will be sent to Intermix Met leach plant in Lermontov.

This company is the partner of ARMZ within the bounds of the project, provides investments and pays development services. The end product consumers are the enterprises of airspace industry, as well as several Russian and foreign holdings. Last year RUB 35 million were invested into the project realization, while in the following 10 years it is planned to invest 500 million more. The scope of production of rare-earth metals by 2023 is planned to increase from today’s 24,5 tons of concentrate up to 134 tons.