Harmonisation of Mining Projects According to Russian and International Standards

One of the sought-after services SRK Russia provides is harmonising mining projects to meet both Russian and international standards. SRK’s comprehensive approach to implementing mining projects has become essential as the recent acute deficit of investment in Russia’s mining industry necessitates the attraction of foreign capital. At the same time, foreign investors from Asia, Europe and America have been looking for mining projects at the initial stage of development. However, foreign investors do not have a clear understanding of Russian legislative requirements for preparing and developing mining projects, while mining companies do not always understand investor’s requirements and expectations.

SRK Russia has worked on several projects that demonstrate the necessity for attracting international investment, while knowing that a project implemented in Russia must fully comply with Russian legislative requirements.

For the past few years, SRK Russia has applied a comprehensive approach to mining projects with a development strategy that satisfies both Russian and international requirements. This includes the completion of comprehensive studies that present parallel resource and reserve estimates and classifications that meet Russian and international requirements.

Similar projects have been undertaken before, by SRK and other consulting companies, but with the current approach, SRK Russia takes the lead, supporting geological exploration and supervising the work of design organisations/institutes. SRK Russia assumes the intellectually challenging responsibility for the business development strategy and the appropriate level of engineering, while the design institutes perform their work following the previously developed technical-economic solutions. Implementing the project successfully requires the joint efforts of all disciplines.

Within the framework of comprehensive studies, SRK Russia has developed an approach that includes the interaction of all stakeholders. A comprehensive approach to both Russian and international requirements require compliance with standards, such as these:

• Preparing input data at the earliest stages to avoid potentially faulty decision making;
   
• Conducting project studies: geology; hydrogeology; geomechanics; opencast operations; underground or open pit mining; production complex; infrastructure; environmental baselines; project execution schedule; capital cost estimate; operational cost estimate; economic assessment; risk and environmental impact assessments;
   
• Preparing reserves and resources estimates following GKZ and international Code requirements (JORC/CIM 43-101 etc.); and
   
• Preparing two packages of project documentation that do not contradict each other, based on a single set of technicaleconomic parameters and solutions.

Common elements of main project documents that meet Russian and international requirements are provided in the Table above. SRK specialists worked in close collaboration with other experts to define methods and practical approaches for single technical-economic solutions to meet Russian and International requirements.

SRK Russia has gained significant experience in project development and engineering, at, for example Udokan copper deposit and Agaskyr copper-molybdenum ore deposit.

Svetlana Polutornaya: spolutornaya@srk.com.ru