Vorkutaugol, a coking coal producing subsidiary of Russian steel producer Severstal, has announced that it has won the tender for the exploitation of the northern and western sections of Yunyaginsky coal field near Vorkuta in the Russian republic of Komi, with total reserves of 7.426 million mt of "K" grade coking coal. The exploitation license is expected to cost the company Ruble 33.6 million (approx. $1.04 million).
Coal mining operations at the northern and western sections of Yunyaginsky coal field are to be started in 2010. It is expected that, by keeping the output level at 600,000 mt of coking coal per year, Vorkutaugol will be able to exploit the sections in question for not less than ten years.
The western section of Yunyaginsky coal field is still to be subjected to preliminary explorations. Accordingly, its coking coal reserves exceed by almost two times the reserves of the northern side of the field, and are estimated at 4.7 million mt.
Since 2007 Vorkutaugol has been exploiting the eastern section of Yunyaginsky open-pit mine, the reserves of which are expected to run out in March 2010.
In Autumn 2008, due to the decrease of prices and demand in the steel markets, which forced Vorkutaugol to significantly cut its investments, the company delayed its earlier announced investment project directed towards increasing Yunyaginsky's mining capacity to one million mt of coking coal per year.