Oleg Mitvol, director of the Natural Resource Oversight Agency, has sent a letter to the Russian subsoil agency pointing to violations of the license agreement.
Photo: Valery Levitin
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Environmental Officials to Strip Brits of Gold Production License
Russia’s environmental watchdog has called to strip a unit of Highland Gold Mining of a license to develop the Maiskoye gold deposit in Chukotka in the Far East.
Oleg Mitvol, director of the Natural Resource Oversight Agency, has sent a letter to the Russian subsoil agency pointing to violations of the license agreement. Among other things, Maiskoye, Highland Gold Mining’s subsidiary, failed to endorse a draft project for developing the deposit with authorities, the letter says.
The Maiskoye is situated in a remote arctic area in the Chukotka region with underdeveloped industrial infrastructure. Its explored reserves are 279 metric tons. The deposit’s development needs $400 million of investments which are expected to turn profit in eleven years’ time.
Last November Oleg Mitvol asked the subsoil agency to withdraw five license agreements from another British gold mining company, Peter Hambro Mining.
Last week, Mr. Mitvol’s inspectors finished a probe of the Sakhalin-2 project which has been under development since the mid-1990s when Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi signed a product sharing deal. Last September, an environmental report with favorable findings for the project was withdrawn launching a probe at Sakhalin Energy, Sakhalin-2’s operator, and ultimately finding violations. Mr. Mitvol said then he would go to international courts to protest environmental violations in Sakhalin-2.
The matter did not proceed till court but Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi had to halve their total share in the project, which gave gas major Gazprom control over Sakhalin-2.
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