Russians discovered molybdenum deposit in one of "written off" mines of Mining Smeltery Basin Bor

Although the study of the World Bank precisely stated that the copper mine "Veliki krivelj", from the makeup of Mining-Smelting Basin (RTB) Bor, should be closed until 2009 due to low content of copper and non-profitable production, the researches recently conducted by the experts of the biggest Russian Institute "RIVS" from Sankt Petersburg showed that that deposit hides significant reserves of molybdenum – the metal whose price is several times higher than the price of copper!

Aleksej Vladimirovič Zimin, general director of Institute "RIVS", says that, for example, if mining aggregates of RTB Bor introduced their technological solutions, they would process between 12 and 20 million tons of this ore on annual basis.

Zimin points out that, with the help of new technology, copper could be separated fro the ore at much lower prices than the former ones, which would make production profitable. In addition to that, the lifetime of this deposit would be prolonged for at least 34 years.

However, beside copper, the processing of ore from "Veliki krivelj" would result in production of significant quantities of molybdenum, general director of "RIVS" points out. If, let’s say, annual processing capacity amounted to 12 million tons of ore, in addition to the profit from copper, extra profit obtained from production of molybdenum would amount to - 18 million USD. With the further improvement of technological process and processing of up to 20 million tons of ore, the annual profit from production of this metal would be - 30 million USD.