Vladimir Denisov

I

t is well known that Russia is very rich in mineral resources. But, as one might say with no exaggeration, the Chita region is just fabulously rich in this respect. This territory, which is located in Eastern Siberia, contains over 25 % of all Russian reserves of copper, 27 % of molybdenum, 18 % of titanium and tantalum accordingly as well as considerable reserves of gold, zinc, tungsten, coal. There are also deposits of iron, chrome, manganese, platinum, palladium, silver, precious stones, other metals and minerals.
The peculiarity of these deposits is a complex composition of most ores that significantly raises the profitability of their development. As accompanying elements to be taken into account there are beryllium, cadmium, indium, gallium, scandium, rhenium, selenium, thallium and other rare metals, the importance of which for the economy has been sharply rising lately.
The trunk transport lines, the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur railroads, which connect Russia’s European part with the Pacific Coast, are going through the Chita region. In the coming two years works will be completed on building the modern Chita-Khabarovsk motor road. All this will make it easier to bring Russian products to markets of countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Zabaikalsk, the largest passing-through border point in the country’s East, accounts for over 60 % of dry-cargo transportation flow between Russia and China. In the foreseeable future there will be oil-and-gas pipelines constructed there that will connect Siberia’s fields with consumers in China, Japan, South Korea.
The energy resources of the Chita region are sufficient to considerably increase volumes of industrial production. At present, there are 8 operating thermal electric power stations with the total capacity of 1,187 MW. Twenty four commercial coal fields with the total reserves over 6 billion tons have been discovered on the region’s territory. The basis of the region’s power engineering is brown coal: its total mining volume amounts to about 14 million tons. Along with the Chita region its consumers are also power engineering enterprises of the neighboring regions. The Kharanorsky open coal pit, the major supplier of ChitaEnergo JSC, belongs to the most profitable coal-mining enterprises in Russia. Its annual volume of coal mining amounts to 2.8 million tons.
The natural gas of the coal-beds there is, mainly, methane. The Apsatskoye field contains from 160 billion cubic meters to 180 billion cubic meters of gas. There are a lot of high (from 4m to 6m) and extra high (from 8m to 12m and more) coal-beds at this field, which are, in essence, large deposits of fixed methane with reserves from 1.9 billion cubic meters to 3.5 billion cubic meters concentrated in a small area of 10 square kilometers. The reserves of recoverable methane at the Chitkandinskoye field are estimated at 18 billion cubic meters and the volume of its potentially possible production might amount up to 500 million cubic meters.
The raw material base of the ferrous metallurgy, which has already been prepared for its development, consists of different types of iron, chrome and manganese deposits. It can ensure operation of any large metallurgical enterprise for a long time. The Chita section of the Baikal-Amur trunk railroad area is considered the most promising. The Charskaya Group of ferruginous quartzite fields and Chineiyskoye field of titanomagnetite ores have been explored there. Almost one billion tons of reserves have been discovered at the Magnitny section alone. The predicted reserves of the Chineiskoye field are estimated at 30 billion tons. Besides, there are the world’s largest reserves of vanadium (over 50 million tons) with the unique ore content (up to 1.2 %) of vanadium pentaoxide (V₂À₅).
Deposits of the non-ferrous fields are dominated by copper. More than 20 % of its Russian reserves are concentrated at the unique Udokanskoye field. In addition, the whole number of large, medium and small fields has been discovered and preliminarily estimated in its immediate vicinity. Their deposits and reserves are comparable with the Udokanskoye ones. What is more, their ores contain also a complex of accompanying components, such as silver, nickel, cobalt, platinum, palladium, gold.
Totally, there are about 500 fields and accumulations of lead and zinc. The most promising Novo-Shirokinskoye field has already been prepared for development. According to calculations, with the annual production volume of 400,000 tons it is quite possible to produce 5,500 tons of zinc, 12,800 tons of lead, 1,300 tons of gold and over 30,000 tons of silver.
The Chita region is known to have about 100 fields and accumulations of molybdenum, although just three of them have been thoroughly explored and the ore is being mined at the Zhyrekenskoye field only. The geological revaluation has been done at the Bugdainskoye field, which, as a result, has been given the status of the gold-and-molybdenum one. According to the hypothetical reserves of gold, this field is comparable with the famous Sukhoy Log field. In fact, over 1,000 gold fields and accumulations have been discovered and studied to different extent. The Chita section of the Baikal-Amur trunk railroad area is considered the future center of gold mining. Geologists expect that there will be discoveries of large reserves of the complex gold-bismuth-copper-tungsten ores in the region.
The Chita region is a major raw material base and supplier of strategically important rare metals, such as lithium, tantalum, niobium, zirconium, germanium, rare earth elements. Reserves of lithium are estimated at several hundred thousand tons. There is already an ongoing production of tantalum and niobium. All preparatory works have been done to start developing the field of the complex cryolite-zircon-tantalum-niobium-rare earth ores. The hypothetical reserves of germanium in the region exceed 1,000 tons. The Chita region is also considered the largest fluorine-containing area in the world. Dozens of fluorine fields containing its most valuable types are known there. The discovered reserves of the 20 largest fields exceed 46 million tons.
Prospects for establishing a large center to produce alumina and potash fertilizers are tied up with developing the Golevskoye field of synnyrites located near the Baikal-Amur trunk railroad. These synnyrites contain 18.2 % of potassium oxide and 21.3 % of alumina. The ore reserves amount to 2.6 billion tons. And the Shylko-Gazimursky ore area may become a raw material base of any large enterprise for magnesite development.
The Chita region is known to have more than 400 fields of precious and decorative reveting stones. Reserves of precious stones, such as beryl, topaz and colored tourmaline are estimated at 85,000 kilos. At present, there is an ongoing production of colored tourmaline, aquamarines, heliodors, topazes.
As far back as the 18th century famous Russian scientist was perspicaciously saying that Russia’s natural resources would be growing thanks to Siberia. The intensive development of the Siberian subsoil has been going on for the whole century but too many fields have not been touched upon as yet.
"The maximum task is to arrange processing of the considerable portion of the Siberian riches on the spot. This fully applies to the Chita region as well", says its Governor Ravil Geniatulin. "So far the prevailing part of the resource’s potential, which has already been prepared for development, is either insufficiently used or is not used at all".
There are just a few large plants and integrated mills in the region. The Priargunskoye Production Mining-and-Chemical Association, Russia’s largest provider of natural uranium, supplies its products in the form of protoxide-oxide and, besides, mines coal, manganese ore, zeolite, molybden. It also produces sulfuric acid, generates electric power as well as manufactures mining and pit equipment.
For a long time the Zabaikalsky integrated mining-and-concentrating mill has remained Russia’s only supplier of lithium products. The enterprise possesses a high technological and personnel potential capable of making high-quality products in the form of metals and chemical compounds of lithium, beryllium, tantalum, niobium, tin, tungsten. Since 1997 this integrated mill has been also producing uranium. The mill has arranged reprocessing of gold-containing concentrates and has been developing the Delmachik gold ore field through heap leaching. The technology of producing tungsten anhydrite has been completely tested. In January 2003 the hydrometallurgical facilities have started to produce fluorite-tantalum of potassium, pentaoxide of niobium and tin concentrate.
The Zhirekensky integrated mining-and-concentrating mill located 5 km from the Trans-Siberian trunk railroad is using high-productivity equipment and technologies. Some time ago due to the insolvency of consumers of its products the enterprise had to be stopped but in 2000 it resumed operating and already in 2002 the volume of producing molybdenum and copper concentrates exceeded the pre-crisis level.

P  R  O  F  I  L  E
Ravil Geniatulin, 47, graduated from the Chita Pedagogical Institute, taught history. In December 1991 was elected chairman of the Chita City Executive Committee. A year later was appointed head of Chita’s Administration. In 1996 won the election to head the Administration of the Chita region. In 2000 was reelected for another term. Since March 2002 has been a member of the Presidium of the State Council.

The Administration of the Chita region initiated investment projects aimed at setting up production facilities for thorough processing raw materials right on the spot of their mining. Governor Ravil Geniatulin considers it a primary task to build a plant for reprocessing sulfide concentrates of gold ore from gold-and-polymetallic fields. The region’s Administration is seeking to create advantageous conditions for private investments. In particular, the case in point is to provide through licenses for using subsoil sections with high resource potential. These territories are considered promising for producing diamonds, platinoids, gold, copper, molybdenum. Proposals of the Chita region’s Administration have been included in the State Licensing Program for 2003 and beyond.
The largest promising projects have to do with forming the Kodaro-Udokansky territorial industrial complex. These projects assume development of unique fields concentrated in a small area close to the Baikal-Amur trunk railroad, above all, the Udokanskoye copper field, the Chineiskoye titanium-iron-vanadium and copper-sulfide fields also containing platinoids as well as the Katuginsky rare metal and Chitkandinskoye gas-and-coal fields. The Udokanskoye copper field is the key site of the complex. It is expected that no less than 20 million tons of ore will be mined there annually.
The Chineiskoye field is considered the leading supplier of the high-quality vanadium-containing iron-ore raw materials to ferrous metallurgy enterprises of Western Siberia, Transbaikalia, the Far East. The use of natural gas from the Chitkandinskoye field located close to the Chineiskoye one permits to make both concentrates and metallized products that results in raising the production profitability.
The implementation of the Udokansky and Chineisky projects is of much importance to the Baikal-Amur trunk railroad. The use of the railroad’s throughput capacity amounts to approximately 30 % and the operation revenue covers less than 50 % of expenses on its maintenance. The State’s only direct losses of the Baikal-Amur trunk railroad exceed 1 billion rubles a year ($1 equal about 30 rubles). The construction of the trunk railroad was completed in 1986, when the country was already started to experience crisis phenomena. It was originally assumed that expenses on construction of the railroad would be recouped by the large-scale development of Eastern Siberia’s richest mineral resources. Now this goal has again been put forward as one of the priority ones. In 1998 works were started on constructing the Chara-Chinei railroad branch line to develop fields of the Kodaro-Udokansky complex and in 2000 it was put into operation. Today, enterprises of the Urals, Siberia, the Far East, CIS member countries show great interest in implementing major projects connected with developing the Udokanskoye, Chineiskoye, Katuginskoye and other fields.