OJSC Pokrovsky Mine (Tygda, Magdagachinsky District, Amur Region) – open pit gold deposit

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

JSC Pokrovsky Rudnik is a large gold mining enterprise in the Far East. The first gold was produced by the mine in 1999. The ore processing plant was built in 2001. The mine is located in the Magdagachinsky district of the Amur region, near the village of Tygda. From the regional center, the city of Blagoveshchensk, at a distance of about 600 kilometers.

Resource base

Pokrovskoye deposit (mine) is located on the southern borders of the Mongolian-Okhotsk geological fold system. In these places there is a wide mineralized zone, which is associated with the contact of tectonic plates. The deposit is a set of five large, mostly horizontal, ore bodies. Mineralization of gold ore is localized in quartz veins, among granitoids and volcanic rocks formed in the Mesozoic geological era.

Gold mineralization reaches a depth of almost 240 meters. At the Pokrovsky mine, there are 2 mainzones:

• Pokrovka-1, the main and main site for the extraction of gold ore;
• Pokrovka-3, located at a distance of about 400 meters from the first zone.

The main deposit of the mine is Pokrovka-1. These are four separate ore bodies, which are called Lake, New, Zeya and Main.

Explored reserves of precious metals by the time they began mining amounted to 56 tons of gold and about 100 tons of silver.

Organization system, technological base, infrastructure

Pokrovsky Mine is an integral part of the Petropavlovsk Group of Companies (Petropavlovsk PLC). The former name of the structure is Peter Hambro Mining, which was formed in 1994. It was founded by Russian citizen P. Maslovsky and British citizen P. Hambro.

Pokrovsky mine became the first mining and metallurgical enterprise in Russia created from scratch.

The mining and hydrometallurgical plant operating at the Pokrovskoye deposit is a large and modern Russian enterprise in the Far East. The cost of gold produced at this mine is one of the lowest in the world. This is due to the fact that in close proximity there is a developed transport infrastructure and there are energy capacities in the form of a hydroelectric power station on the Zeya River. And also due to the fact that the development of the root gold deposit is carried out in an open way.

Currently, almost 2,800 people work at the mine (including on a rotational basis). Thanks to the efforts of Petropavlovsk Group of Companies, herea modern infrastructure has been created, which is equipped with a power supply system, water supply, access roads. A heating plant and a camp for shift workers were built at the mine. It has its own modern geological laboratory, as well as an economic and administrative complex of buildings and structures.

The mine is located in the Amur Region, at a distance of 7 kilometers from the village of Tygda.

Official address: Amur region, Tygda village, Magdagachinsky district, Sovetskaya street, house 17.

Historical background

The history of gold mining at the Pokrovsky mine begins in 1999. Then the first precious metal was obtained here using the heap leaching method.

It was at this mine that this method began to be used year-round, in very difficult climatic conditions. The unique technological solutions used here have been patented.

Also, gold mining is carried out through enrichment. For this purpose, a mining and hydrometallurgical plant was built at the mine.

Production

The modern hydrometallurgical plant was put into operation in 2002, and in the same year it began to “give out” the first gold. By the autumn of 2004, its capacity had increased significantly, as a result of which it began to process almost one and a half million tons of ore per year.

Works at the mine are carried out by a modern fleet of equipment and machines, which are the property of Petropavlovsk Group of Companies. The fleet includes Caterpillar bulldozers, excavators such asEKG-5, as well as Belarusian BelAZ dump trucks with a carrying capacity of 45 tons.

Until recently, the company managed to stably maintain the volume of gold mining. Gold-bearing ores were mined in an open pit in two places, namely, in the Pionersky and Molodezhny quarries. Recently, JSC "Pokrovsky Mine" began to introduce new technologies. Since the gold-bearing veins are practically exhausted, the issue of extracting silver and gold from production waste formed over a long time is on the agenda.

The record for gold production at the Pokrovsky mine in the Amur Region was recorded in 2009. Then produced 199,600 troy ounces. In subsequent years, gold production was maintained at the level of 135,000-145,000 ounces per year. However, since 2012, due to the depletion of gold veins, gold production has been gradually declining.

Prospects

Currently, the Petropavlovsk group of companies carries out geological exploration and surveys along the perimeter of the Pokrovskoye field. The results obtained allow us to say that the life of the mine will continue.

Over the entire history of the Pokrovsky mine, it has produced almost 1,850,000 ounces of gold. Now it is in the stage of final depletion of the main Pokrovka-1 field. As a result, including for the continuation of the use of the created material base and infrastructure, the plan began to be implemented: the mine will be transformed into an enterprise,which will process refractory ores using new advanced methods.

At the same time, the Petropavlovsk group of companies aims to turn Pokrovsky Mine OJSC into a gold mining center. It implements modern flotation-autoclave technologies for extracting gold, which will make it possible to obtain a precious metal that cannot be obtained through traditional processing.

Start of change

Currently, work is underway at the Pokrovsky Mine to launch this HUB. To this end, large-scale research is being carried out at a factory in the city of Blagoveshchensk (test structure). There, samples are being studied and personnel are being trained for the coming changes.

It is expected that after the launch of Pokrovsky AGK, it will turn into the most powerful and technologically advanced autoclave gold mining complex in the Russian Federation, adapted to work with various ores that have various characteristics.

For this purpose, LLC Pokrovsky AGK (Pokrovsky Autoclave Hydrometallurgical Plant) was established in 2016.