KRASNOYARSK, October 12. /TASS/. The Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) has made a modern solid-waste landfill for the Bystrinsky mining plant in Transbaikalia’s south-east. The landfill will be put operational in late October, the company’s Vice President Elena Bezdomnykh said on Thursday.
"Preservation of the environment in Transbaikalia is a priority for us. The company has made already a modern solid-waste landfill to receive waste of the forth and fifth class (low hazard - TASS)," she told the sixth ecology conference - Environment and Industries in the North. "The landfill may take 100,000 tonnes, and its project term is 40 years, if the annual amount is 2,500 tonnes of waste."
As the landfill is closed, the company will re-vegetate the soil fully.
Press service of the Bystrinsky mining plant told TASS the new landfill is the only facility of the kind in Transbaikalia - it complies fully with all the sanitary requirements. Its objective is to exclude a negative impact on the environment from the Bystrinsky plant. The landfill’s construction began in 2013, it takes an area of 37.5 hectares, and it is equipped with all the modern systems: drainage, irrigation network, pump stations and treatment facilities. The mining plant will also have a modern sewage treatment facility.
Earlier, Transbaikalia’s Governor Natalia Zhdanova said the new mining plant is due to open on October 31.
First-class asset
The Bystrinsky Mining and Processing Plant is on the list of Norilsk Nickel’s first-class assets. The project began in 2007, with the total investments of about $1.7 billion. By 2020, the plant will produce 70-75 million tons of copper a year.
"Over the first ten years of the plant’s work, the regional budget will receive more than 18 billion rubles ($312 million) in taxes, and the plant will offer more than 3,000 jobs," the press service said.
The project consists of two parts - infrastructures and mining. The plant is constructed on the base of a copper-iron-gold deposit, where the reserves are estimated at 2.1 million tons of copper, 7.6 million ounces of gold, 34.1 million ounces of silver and 67 million tons of magnetite iron. It is among the ten biggest copper deposits in the world.
The Company has built production facilities (a concentrator, open-pit mines, tailings pit, etc.) and amenities, and the Borzya - Gazimursky Zavod railway of 227 km with the capacity of at least of 4 mtpa of cargo. The deposit is 300 km from the border between Russia and China, and China would be the key market for the plant’s copper concentrate. Norilsk Nickel also considers entering markets of the Asia-Pacific Region.