OREANDA-NEWS Exploration of proven reserves of such scarce minerals as uranium, chromium, manganese, titanium, fluorspar, tungsten and aluminum in Russia for about 5-15 years needs to be increased, said Alexander Kozlov, head of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

"Given the task of commodity sovereignty, we simply have to minimize imports. We now have 17 such types of raw materials. We call them scarce. We have enough supplies for ten types. It is necessary to develop processing technologies and create energy and transport infrastructure to the fields," he said during a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the government.

"And for seven types, we have proven reserves for about 5-15 years. We need to step up exploration on them. These are uranium, chromium, manganese, titanium, fluorspar, tungsten and aluminum," the minister stressed.