According to a spokesman of the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use, the Russian Federation is backed with gold at the current level of production for the next 36 years. So he reacted to the remarks of Pavel Grachev, general director of the gold mining firm “Polyus,” who spoke about the dangers of a raw material scarcity “on the horizon of 10-20 years.”, Kommersant writes.
“The Russian Federation has been stocked with gold for 36 years at the present output level of 427 tons (until 2020)…. The information given by Mr. Grachev, General Director of PJSC Polyus, in an interview with RBC is unconfirmed, TASS received a statement from a Rosnedra official.
Rosnedra also provided its statistics on the amount of explored gold reserves in Russia, which stood at 15 319 tons at the start of the year, compared to Mr. Grachev’s estimate of 7.5-8 thousand tons.
The agency also said that increased reproduction of reserves has been accomplished on a yearly basis since 2014.
Pavel Grachev said the day before that he believes it is critical to reverse recent trends in gold mining so that the sector does not suffer a “structural scarcity of the raw material basis” in the future decades.
To that goal, he recommends, among other things, simplifying the distribution of prospecting permits, consolidating and double-checking geological data, and increasing private investment in geological exploration.
