T/P IN ENGLISH18 Jun 2021 03:25
The deposit near Monchegorsk is rich in platinum group metals, perhaps even more than was expected. Rosgeologia has doubled the resource forecast of the identified deposits. In the area of ??the Poaz massif, the final field work is underway, the last wells are being drilled.
Drilling driver Anatoly Savin: “160 meters have passed, 7 meters are left to the end of the well”.
There remains a mere trifle - to drill only two wells and "finish off" 170 running meters. Since the beginning of the research, more than 5 thousand have been completed. So, in fact, the word of geologists has been said. Over the year, not something that has not changed, but strengthened in the opinion - the most promising layer, ore "layer cake" almost underfoot, with a content of cobalt, copper, palladium, nickel, gold, platinum.
Vladimir Ivanchenko, leading geologist of North-West PGO of the Rosgeologia holding: “We have now found three platinum-bearing horizons, which go there further for another 3 km. Further south, can you imagine? We get one layer and 3 more layers above it. That is, this is such a huge ore occurrence that, in general, one can only dream. We calculated the forecast resources and they amounted to about 336 tons of platinum and palladium. "
The fact that this region is rich in ore was known before. But before these studies, the deposit was considered unattractive - there is not enough nickel in it. Finding valuable metals fundamentally changes the situation. In addition, unprecedented luck - the logistics are ideal, ready-made infrastructure "at hand", as if ordered. And the city of metallurgists, and the railway. If everything is confirmed, then in the future they will be provided with jobs for 40 years.
Correspondent Anastasia Yaroslavskaya: “Now - the exit of geophysicists. With a special probe with a camera, they now have to study the layers of the earth, catch magnetic anomalies. Fluctuations will give more accurate data. Is this deposit so rich?
Specialists from St. Petersburg have lost the habit of snow, at home there is a thaw all winter. It will not take long to freeze near Monchegorsk. All measurements take a maximum of a day, and most of the work is done remotely. All data from the probe goes to the computer.
Dmitry Bushmanov, a geophysicist at North-West PGO of Rosgeologia holding: “We are still looking at whether there is or not, and then, if it is proved that there is, then a lot of drilling will begin and the volumes will already be estimated.
Geology is a capricious lady. There is still a whole complex of research ahead. In a year they will say for sure whether Monchegorsk, the firstborn of copper and nickel metallurgy, has a chance to become a platinum city as well. The preliminary forecasts are more than good.
Anastasia Yaroslavskaya.
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