Russia's Arctic ore mining district attractive for investors, experts note

The new data on resources of nickel and platinum group metals on the Kola Peninsula, which geologists received after recent research, prove the Monchegorsk mining-ore district is attractive for investors, Managing Director of the geology authority, Rosgeologiya, Oleg Vasin said.

"The well-developed infrastructures, the Kola MMC refineries and the ores rich in platinum, copper and nickel - mean this district’s resources will be estimated, and thus the Monchegorsk mining-ore district will revive," the official said.

Geologists estimate reserves in the Monchegorsk ore district. They say there are about 525.000 tonnes of nickel there, 29.5 tonnes of platinum and 133.9 tonnes of palladium. In 2018-2019, according to the official, geologists "will continue studies of the Monchegorsk area’s eastern part in Poaz."

"We are trying to revive the entire Monchegorsk ore district," he told TASS. "It is not reasonable here to compete with Norilsk in ore deposits, but the economic effectiveness of developing these not big nickel deposits is quite good."

He continued by stressing, Monchegorsk has many refineries, but the local resources are not sufficient to keep them busy. Development of the Kola Peninsula’s fields could be of demand in future, he added. "We are working there at early stages, and thus what we are doing may be of demand in ten or in twenty years."

Back in the 1930s, resources of copper-nickel ores were found near Monchegorsk, and at that time the government took the decision to build there a mining and metallurgical plant. This development was interrupted by the war in the 1940s, and later on production of those ores was mostly at other, bigger deposits, in Russia’s other regions.