RE: Lesego29 Aug 2020 09:24
Rowka, after spending most of the night reading I still get no closer to a significant conclusion. To be brief, I can’t sort in my head whether the state will “allow” a foreign company to own the pgms as the the state technically owns what is in the subsoil or it will “invite” a company to mine it’s metals for the obvious state cut of the profit. My thoughts are it will be a Russian company/ companies and Eurasia will be allowed a cut. Simplified but it’s the only way I can see it going.
Below is a copied and pasted excerpt from an article on reserves in the old Soviet Union. It made it a bit easier for me to understand.
The system of reporting reserves in the Soviet Union did not include the use of market-based economic criteria to establish the feasibility of developing these reserves using current technology at prevailing market conditions, and was based on drilling results only. Moreover, Soviet data on reserves for some metals was kept in secret.
However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union Russian companies began seeking exposure to foreign investors in order to raise financing.
A number of state secrecy laws were repealed, which has led some Russian companies to start reporting their reserves and resources according to JORC standards.
Russia’s metals and mining industry represents around 3%-5% of Russia’s 2015 GDP and also accounted for 16% of total Russian exports in 2015 (or USD53 billion), the second-largest sector after oil and gas. Most Russian metals production is exported.
Russia is one of the world’s largest exporters of raw materials. Its market share of total global exports in nickel is estimated at around 49% – palladium: 42%, diamonds: 33%, aluminum: 26%, platinum: 13%, steel: 7% and copper: 4%.
Despite its significance for the economy, metals and mining is a largely privately owned sector, as opposed to oil and gas where the share of state ownership is significant. The only state-owned company in the sector among major players is Alrosa, which is the world’s largest diamond producer.