As reported by Kommersant, A-property, the company of Yota founders Albert Avdolyan and Sergey Adoniev intends to fully buy out the Elga deposit from Mechela and Gazprombank. According to conservative estimates, the purchase of Elga and the development of the project will require no less than 180 billion rubles total. The transaction itself may amount to 60-120 billion rubles. However, it is yet unclear how the transaction will be financed. Kommersant’s interviewees in the business doubt that state banks will be willing to once again grant credits for the Elga project.
Kommersant does not exclude the possibility of Dmitry Bosov’s Sibanthracite Group’s involvement in the management of Elga. Aside from planning to purchase and develop Elga, Albert Avdolyan and Sergey Adoniev also plan to create an industrial cluster in Yakutia. This cluster will include the Yakutia fuel and energy company, the Ogodzhinsk coal project in partnership with Sibanthracite and Rostech, as well as the Vera port in the Far East. In accordance with the draft development strategy of the Russian coal industry, the costs of developing the Sugodinskoe-Ogodzhinskoe deposit are estimated at 9 billion rubles. Rostech, according to Kommersant’s interviewees in the business, will not take substantial part in the investments: in accordance with the state corporation’s established practice in mining projects, its role is not financing, but rather searching for private investors, as well as lobbyism. The role of Dmitry Bosov’s Sibanthracite may be the operational control of coal projects, including Elga, Kommersant’s source admits. However, the source doubts Sibanthracite’s willingness to invest in Elga, considering their own significant coal assets.
Vice president of Moody’s in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States Denis Perevezentsev adds that the development of Elga may also require increased port capacity.
Sibanthracite Group is the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of high quality UHG anthracite, and Russia’s largest metallurgical coal producer. Sibanthracite group is one of the most actively developing coal companies in the country. In 2014, the scale of the production amounted to 6 million tons, in 2018 – 24.1 million tons. By 2022, the production will increase to 58 million tons a year. The group includes the leading coal companies of Novosibirsk Oblast – AO Siberian Anthracite, OOO Razrez Vostochny, and large Kemerovo Oblast coal producer OOO Razrez Kiyzassky. In 2019, production began on the Sugodinsko-Ogodzhinskoe deposit (Amur Oblast,) whose resources are estimated at 1.5 billion tons, and in 2020 production will begin on the Verkhneteshsky site in Kuzbass.