Billionaire Alisher Usmanov and his company Udokan Copper will invest up to $9 billion in the development of the Udokan deposit in Transbaikalia, Kallanish notes.

According to the chairman of the board of directors of the enterprise Valery Kazikaev, the first stage of the project construction alone will cost the company about $3 billion. The budget for the second stage should be between $4-6 billion.

The company's business plan provides for profitability at a price of less than $6,000/tonne - this was the price of copper when the project was launched last year. It is now close to $10,000/t, it says.

The Udokan copper processing plant is planned to be completed in 2022.

The second stage increases its overall processing capacity to up to 40 million tonnes/year of ore, up from the volume of the first stage, which totals up to 15m t/y.

As a result of the implementation of the project, a mining and smelting plant will be put into operation, the final product of which will be cathode copper and sulfide concentrate. The volume of production of the final product of the plant will be 135,000 t of copper per year.

The project centres on the Udokan copper deposit in the Kalar District of the Trans-Baikal territory. The resources of the deposit are estimated at 26.7m t of copper. 

Earlier, the Udokan copper company said it plans to have a significant role in the global energy industry.

In 2021, it signed an agreement with the Russian Ministry for Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, the government of the Trans-Baikal region and the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation to implement the second phase of the Udokan copper deposit development project.