OREANDA-NEWS. On 31 January 2008 was announced, that on 24 January Viktor Rashnikov, Chairman of OJSC MMK Board of Directors, and Viktor Ten, Director of  Belgorod LLC Design Institute Tsentrogiproruda, signed a  Design Contract for the construction of Prioskolsky Iron Ore Mining and Beneficiation Plant.


   Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works started implementing the project for the development of Prioskolsky Iron Ore Deposit with the reserves of 45 million tons of rich ore and over 2 billion tons of ferruginous quartzite. On January 11, 2008 OJSC MMK’s branch Prioskolsky Iron Ore Mining and Beneficiation Plant was registered in the city of Stary Oskol, Belgorod Region. Sergei Shergin was appointed the Director of the Branch.


   The  Iron Ore Mining and Beneficiation Plantcapacity and  Iron  Ore Deposit reserves will allow to completely cover OJSC MMK’s requirement in  iron ore raw materials  for over 60 years, and favorable geographic location of the deposit  and large iron ore material reserves  will allow considering their use both for OJSC MMK’s needs and for the Company’s international projects. 

  
   According to the terms and conditions of the Contract LLC  Tsentrogiproruda will carry out the design and exploration work as a general contractor and will be responsible for the agreement of the project documentation and obtaining of approval of  GlavGosExpertiza of Russia. It will prepare the design solutions and perform the designer supervision during the construction.    

        
   Preparation and approval of the technical design will be completed in the first half of 2009.   According to MMK’s plans the construction of infrastructure facilities of the Iron Ore Mining and Beneficiation Plant will start as early as in the end of 2009.  The commercial iron ore production will start not later than December 2012 and in 2016 the Plant will produce over 22 million tons per year.   In 2017 the Plant is expected to reach its annual design capacity of 35 million tons of raw iron ore. The production of commercial products, such as sinter, pellets and iron ore concentrate will amount to 15 million tons. The achieved production of iron ore materials at Prioskolsky Iron Ore Mining and Beneficiation Plant will allow to completely cover MMK’s requirement in iron ore materials, if necessary (adding the supplies of raw materials from the local iron ore base).