The basis of the mineral resource base of the Amur Region is gold. Experts of FANU Vostokgosplan came to this conclusion having analyzed the level of the region’s provision with mineral resources as part of the work to prepare socio-economic profiles of the constituent entities of the Russian Far Eastern Federal District.

According to experts, as of January 1, 2020, the state balance sheet records 678 gold deposits (23 primary and 655 placer) with total reserves of 478.4 tons (2.6% of all-Russian reserves), of which 83% are concentrated in primary deposits.

“The main primary primary deposits are: Bamskoye (99.1 tonnes) and Berezitovoye (13.4 tonnes) in Tynda district; Elginskoye (72.7 tonnes), Malomyrskoye (76.0 tonnes), Albynskoye (3.5 tonnes) in Selemdzhinskiy district and Pioner (21.0 tonnes) in Magdagachinskiy district. Prolonged exploitation of gold-bearing deposits without appropriate replenishment of the raw material base has caused a downward trend in production indicators since 2014. According to the results of 2018, gold production was 23.8 tons, in 2019 – 30.65 tons, in 2020 – 23.7 tons, in 2021 – about 22 tons (10.2% of all-Russian),” – noted analysts.

In addition, the region has silver reserves – 21 deposits with total reserves of 759.5 tons (0.5% of all-Russian reserves) have been accounted for. In 2019, 16.9 tons of silver was mined, mainly as a by-product at the gold ore deposits.

According to analysts, the development of metal ore deposits is a new promising direction for the development of the region’s mining industry.

“There are three iron ore deposits with total reserves of 579.9 million tons in the region. The largest deposits are: Garinskoye (259.4 million tons) in Mazanovskiy district and Bolshoy Seyim (292.8 million tons) in Tyndinskiy district. Both fields are being prepared by subsoil users for development. The Bolshoy Seyim deposit is one of the largest in the country in terms of titanium content – 22.5 million tons (3.7% of Russia’s reserves), it also includes vanadium reserves (289.3 thousand tons). There was no extraction of iron ore, titanium and vanadium in 2019,” experts said.

Deposits of non-ferrous and rare-earth metals, which are represented by insignificant reserves of uranium, nickel, cobalt, copper, molybdenum, platinum and palladium, were identified in the Amur region. Exploration works on Kun-Manye deposit, where reserves of nickel (305 thousand tons), copper (85,8 thousand tons), platinoids (15,9 tons) and cobalt (5 thousand tons) are already taken into account.

Energy raw materials in the region are represented by coal. There are 8 deposits with total reserves of 3.7 billion tons (1.8% of all-Russian reserves).

“Coal reserves have low quality characteristics, which significantly limits the possibility of increasing its production for supplies to the domestic market and even more so for export. The largest brown coal deposits are Svobodnoe (1,740.6 million tons of balance reserves) in the Svobodnensky district of the region and the developed Yerkovetskoe (1,071.5 million tons), located at the intersection of Ivanovsky, Oktyabrsky and Romnensky districts. In 2019, 3.5 million tons of coal will be produced, in 2020 – 3.3 million tons, in 2021 – 3.4 million tons,” the analysts specified.

The region also has good reserves of common minerals, including mining raw materials: 3 deposits of refractory clay (with total reserves of 10.9 million tons), 2 deposits of zeolites (15.1 million tons), 3 deposits of cement raw materials (91.1 million tons), 133 deposits of building stones (565.4 million cubic meters) and others.

“Currently, in the structure of the mineral and raw materials complex of the region there are no stages of deep conversion. Nevertheless, the reserves of iron-titanium and other complex deposits make it possible to form a full-cycle metallurgical cluster with a high level of extraction of useful components in the Amur Region. The construction of a full-scale mining and processing plant for the production of iron ore concentrate is already envisaged. In order to increase the degree of return from the development of the region’s valuable mineral resources, it is advisable to expand the stages of processing to the production of finished products,” experts concluded.