SMM6: despite the drop in global metal prices, Russia plans to significantly increase its domestic cobalt production in the next few years.
Analysts in the RussianExpert business magazine estimate that although Russia's official cobalt reserves are divided, the current range is 630000 to 650000 tons, of which 200000 tons have been proven.
By 2022, Russia's cobalt production will increase to 8,000 million tons, compared with the current production of 5,000 million tons. This will increase Russia's share of global cobalt production from the current 5 per cent to 8 per cent.
The only cobalt producer in Russia is Norilsk Nickel.
In 2010, the International seabed Authority awarded 3000 square kilometers of seabed to Russia for geological exploration and cobalt mining.
Potential resources are estimated at 2.7 billion tons of ore. Among them, nickel is 900000 tons, manganese is 39 million tons, cobalt is 1 million tons. Russian geologists have recovered the drill cores of cobalt-rich manganese crusts at the site for analytical exploration.
Tatyana Khulapova, chief geologist of Yuzhmorgeologiya, a subsidiary of Rosgeology, the Russian state-owned geological company that is directly in charge of the cobalt project, said Russia's seabed reserves could be equivalent to 50000 tons of cobalt and 250 million tons of nickel.
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