UrBC, Yekaterinburg, July 14, 2017. Russian Copper Company intends to start extracting porphyry copper ore from Tominsky Deposit next year, the company’s Director for the Environment, Job Safety & Industrial Safety Natalia Gonchar told reporters at the Innoprom 2017 International Industrial Exhibition.

‘We already have a mining jobs plan that was approved of by the authorities, and we must go along with this plan in full compliance with our license requirements. This is why we need to start with the open-cast mining operations. The plan is to get the first batches of ore in 2018. One doesn’t need a construction permit to do open-cast mining, but the permit is necessary if you want to do some capital construction. In our case, this would be a processing plant. In order to get the ore for the processing, however, we first need to remove the fertile soil layer and the trees and access the ore,’ Gonchar said.

According to Gonchar, the mining area must be isolated with protective fences first. The fertile soil layer in question must be stored safely throughout the mine’s entire lifecycle so that it can be used for area reclamation later on.