A 9.53% stake in Russian copper/nickel mining company Intergeo was sold on Thursday in a joint deal by Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund, the Russia-China Investment fund and a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth, Interfax reported.
Intergeo, a part of Onexim Group, which manages the assets of Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, is developing its Kingash deposit in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region and Ak-Sug deposit in the southern Siberian Tuva region.
RDIF said it and its partners were joining the project and that total investments aimed at developing the fields and constructing associated infrastructure would exceed 178 billion roubles ($2.72 billion).
“The project will give significant impetus to the economies of the two Russian regions and help create over 10,000 jobs,” CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev was quoted by TASS as saying.
Intergeo owns several mineral deposits with significant copper and nickel reserves, including the Kingash deposit in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region and the Ak-Sug deposit in the southern Siberian Tuva region.
Kingash, Russia’s second largest nickel deposit, is expected to start production in 2024, while Ak-Sug, one of Russia’s top-5 copper reserves, is expected to start in 2023, RDIF said.
RDIF said in January it was planning to set up a new company to supply base metals to China from an existing deposit that had been untapped for a long time.
