ARKHANGELSK, November 9. /TASS/. The state-run geology holding, Rosgeologia, will begin in December geology exploration at the Syradasay and Nizhnelemberovskoye coal deposits on the Taymyr Peninsula, the holding company's representative Sergey Knyshov said on Tuesday.
All equipment, house modules and special vehicles are being delivered to the peninsula from the Arkhangelsk port, he added.
"Rosgeologia has signed a five-year contract on geological exploration of 60,000 linear meters of drilling," the company's representative said. "This year, the drilling will begin in December and it will continue in early 2023. This will be done within the winter period. Two deposits: Syradasay and Nizhnelemberovskoye."
The works' purpose is to clarify the reserves. Rosgeologia's specialists will do core drilling to examine the cores - their geological structures, distribution areas, and occurrence conditions, and will analyze the coal quality. "In order to clarify what is where, how thick the layers are, what quality that coal is, and it's quite normal that at one field coal qualities may differ, thus we will make a more condensed network of wells. Specialists will identify the field's contour, its model, and later on the report will be presented to the State Commission on Reserves, and the approved reserves will be put on the balance sheet," he told TASS.
For the exploration on the Taymyr, the company has bought new equipment, mostly Russian made. The equipment will be shipped from Arkhangelsk to the Yenisei port along the Northern Sea Route. "All the equipment has replaced earlier imported items. While in the past we used imported caterpillar and bulldozer equipment, now everything is Russian," he said. "The conditions are very difficult - this is the very north of the Taymyr, so all the purchased equipment is new."
The port of Arkhangelsk has been chosen due to the convenient railway connection, since the cargos are sent to the port from different regions. It takes a vessel five days to sail from Arkhangelsk to the Yenisei port. "The Arkhangelsk port traditionally has been a supply port for Arctic projects. Over the past nine months, we can see a growth in cargo handling of the Arkhangelsk port [year over year]: it's about 15% growth in coastal services, and about 30% in the port's general operations. It is important that we do manage to ship the necessary cargo to the field at the end of the summer navigation," the Arkhangelsk Region's Minister of Economic Development, Industry and Science Viktor Ikonnikov said. "We can see that Arctic projects, despite the sanctions and limitations, continue to be implemented. I think this will keep busy our port personnel, who successfully cope with their tasks."
About deposits
AEON Investment Group is implementing several large-scale coal and anthracite mining projects in the Arctic - in the Krasnoyarsk Region's north - within the Taymyr coal basin. The group's assets - Severnaya Zvezda and VostokUgol-Dixon - hold licenses for geological exploration, exploration and production of coal at the Syradasay and Nizhnelemberovskoye deposits, and at the Lemberovskaya Area on the Taymyr Peninsula. The Severnaya Zvezda Company has started to develop the Syradasay coal deposit, where reserves have brands of coking coals that are most valuable for coking and use in metallurgy.
The VostokUgol-Dixon company is preparing for the development of the Nizhnelemberovskoye field, which is 20 km from the town of Dixon. Geological studies at the adjacent subsoil area, the Lemberovskaya Area, are underway.