Putin's VEB Agrees to Lend $300 Million to Usmanov's Copper Mine

May 10 (Bloomberg) - VEB, the state development bank with Russian President Vladimir Putin as chairman, agreed to lend as much as $300 million to billionaire Alisher Usmanov's Udokan copper project in eastern Siberia for three years.

The bank's board agreed to lend the money to Baikal Mining Co., which holds the license to Udokan, the bank said today in an e-mailed statement. The funds will be used to finance the preliminary stage of Udokan's development, VEB said.

The resource, which contains 14.4 million metric tons of copper metal, is among the world's five largest deposits of the commodity, according to the statement. A railway link and coal power station need to be built to develop the project, VEB said.