Russia
The Urals deposits
Platinum group metals production in Russia has a history
stretching back to the early nineteenth century. Large alluvial
platinum deposits were discovered in the Ural Mountains in 1823,
and have been exploited continuously up to the present. Once far
richer than any known underground sources, these deposits have long
since been stripped of the highest grade ore and now account for
under one per cent of Russian platinum production.
The Noril'sk-Talnakh mines
Production from the Urals placers probably started to decline
from the 1920s. But in 1935, exploitation began of pgm-containing
copper-nickel deposits on the Taimyr Peninsula in northern Siberia;
these remain the most important of Russia's known pgm reserves. The
first to be discovered and exploited was the Norilsk deposit; this
lies just south of the town of that name which grew up to serve the
mining operations. Mining was initially via adit operations, but in
the 1940s, two open pits were developed; the smaller, Ugol Creek,
was closed in the late 1960s, but the Medvezhy Ruchey pit is still
being mined. By the early 1950s the Zapolyarny underground mine was
also exploiting the deposit.
In 1960, high grade copper-nickel deposits were discovered at
Talnakh, 27 kilometres north of Norilsk. Five mines have since been
developed, all of which are still in operation. The first, and
shallowest at a maximum depth of around 400 metres, was the Mayak
mine; production here started in 1965. It was followed by the
Komsomolsky mine in around 1970, and the Oktyabrsky mine about five
years later. The Taimyrsky mine entered production during the 1980s
and the most recent and deepest mine, Skalisty, was opened in the
late 1990s. It operates at depths up to 2,000 metres.
Processing and output levels
Concentrating, smelting and base metal refining are carried out
in facilities at the Norilsk-Talnakh complex. A proportion of the
high grade nickel ore is sent directly to the Norilsk Nickel
Combine (NNC) smelter on the Kola Peninsula. Pgm slimes are
recovered from the electrolytic refining of nickel and copper and
are sent outside NNC to specialist precious metals refineries for
the production of pgm.
Peak production at the Norilsk-Talnakh mines was reached in the
late 1980s, at around 4 million oz of palladium and 1 million oz of
platinum annually. The break up of the Soviet Union heralded a
period of declining production which was to continue until the late
1990s. Mine output returned to steady growth throughout the 2000s,
but again plateaued from around 2008. Pgm ore grades have shown a
gradual decline, and recent production has been supplemented by the
processing of above ground stocks of various concentrates.
The company plans to reverse this downward trend by processing
increased ore tonnage. This will come from expanding massive ore
output in the Skalisty mine and growth in disseminated ore mining
on the Norilsk-1 deposit in the existing Medvezhey Ruchey and
Zapolyarny operations. While significant capital investment is
required to raise concentrator capacity to meet the expansion in
tonnes milled, the company currently predicts sustained growth in
pgm output to recommence from around 2015. In the longer term, new
operations on the Maslovskoye deposit, an extension of the
Norilsk-1 reserves, are targeted to maintain growth in pgm
output.
Other sources
Significant quantities of platinum have been produced from two
alluvial deposits in the far east region of Russia. The first is
the Kondyor mine in Khabarovsk region and the second, which started
production in 1994, is the Koryak mine in Kamchatka. Together these
two operations produced 185,000 oz of platinum in 2005.
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