The employees of Lab Tests & Engineering Measurements Center’s Chelyabinsk Region division carried out a multi-faceted environmental inspection of Russian Copper Company’s ZAO Karabashmed at the end of June 2010.

The experts’ conclusion states that the enterprise does not exceed the maximum permissible atmospheric discharge quotas set for its copper-smelting facilities No 0015 and vitriolic facilities No 0202.

‘Once I have become the company’s director, no emergency or excessive discharges ever occur. This is what the recent inspection proved. However, even the within-the-limits discharges inconvenience the local citizens, mostly because it’s sometimes hard to get the forecast that could warn us about the unfavorable weather conditions so that we could react quickly. We have drawn up a protocol for this kind of situations and are now trying to get all the services and divisions to operate smoothly,’ says Karabashmed’s General Director Alexander Golov.

He reports the company is now assembling its second sulfur dioxide recycling shop that will operate with together with the first one and will thus solve the problem of atmospheric discharges.

The first restoration work begat at Karabashmed in 1998. By June 1, 2009, over $130m had been invested in production upgrades and environmental reclamation of the town of Karabash. So far, the company has launched a unique oxygen station, a reverse water supply system, a wet gas scrubbing facility, a slag beading system based on a closed water cycle, and a facility meant for recycling the sulfur from exit gases and vitriolic production. Also, the metallurgical shop’s gas ducts system has been restored and some bag filters were installed for fine purification of gases. Finally, the enterprise launched Ausmelt, Russia’s only copper-smelting facility, and operates an ore mining and processing factory.