Amur hails Russia's removal of metal export tax

Russia has announced the removal of export taxes on nickel and copper, which AIM-listed Amur Minerals says could save it around $230m.Amur, which is focused on exploration and development of base metal projects in the far east of Russia, noted that the Russian Federation eliminated the 5% export tax on nickel and the 10% tax on copper. "The elimination of the tax opens the door to added operational trade off studies specifically related to the generation of a final saleable nickel and copper product at the Kun-Manie Project," Amur said. "This is the third financial incentive package recently implemented by the Russian government and the Ministry of Economic Development, all of which directly and favourably reduce the cost of recovering nickel and copper." Using recent metal prices of $18,734 per tonne for nickel and $6,064 per tonne of copper, the average annual export tax cost saving could reach $17.9m for its Kun-Manie Project, which it said represented "a substantial improvement" in the earnings before interest and tax. Over the course of the life of mine, undiscounted revenue increase could be as much as $230m.Chief Executive Robin Young said: "An incentive such as this also opens the door to additional considerations that could well continue to improve the economic and technical potential of the Kun-Manie Project." He added: "Given the fact that the directors believe the mining resource could increase significantly, this could reap an even larger benefit."Shares in Amur were up 3.48% to 2.98p just before close on Tuesday.OH