In cooperation with the Mining and Metallurgy Institute from Bor, the Chinese company Zijin has started drafting the central project for exploitation of the Borska Reka underground mining site.
The location is estimated to contain deposits of nearly 4 million tonnes of copper, 130 tonnes of gold and over 1,000 tonnes of silver ore, which value exceeds USD 30 billion.
The relevant data show that the site contains geological reserves of 320 million tonnes of the ore, guaranteeing a 50-year exploitation period. However, the assumption is that Borska Reka in fact contains more than a billion tonnes of ore, with an average content of 1% copper, nearly three times as much as the RTB mines that Zijin currently exploits.
The Borska Reka site, which activation requires an investment of at least EUR 150 million, has so far been explored only up to the depth of 450 metres. The site is assumed to widen as the depth increases, along with growing deposits of copper and other metal ore.
Confirmation by the World Bank
The attractiveness of Borska Reka as a mining site, which resembles the underground copper mine Cukaru Peki in its mineral composition, is also validated by the fact that, in 2002, the World Bank published a study according to which the future of local mining should be based on exploring and exploiting this site.
The news that Zijin has discovered the substantial deposits of gold, copper and silver ore near Bor raises the question of how many mines and hidden precious ore deposits are there in our country.
At the beginning of May, the Chinese company signed a contract worth 33.5 million euro stipulating the exploitation of gold and copper mines at the Cukaru Peki site near Bor, with an estimated one million tonnes of copper to be found on the site.
In Serbia, the most prevalent is the exploitation of copper and gold, lead, zinc, iron, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, cobalt, cadmium, antimony. Mines around Bor certainly draw the biggest attention. Here, according to the Canadian company Nevsun, there are about 15 million tonnes of copper and about 370 tonnes of gold, with the site’s value estimated at about $ 100 billion.
Three also mining sites on the Crni Vrh Mountain, near Zagubica, which contain as much as 72 tonnes of gold. Silver deposits in Serbia were found in the Carpathian region, in Bor, Krivelja, Majdanpek, Timok, Blagojevo Kamen and Pek, as well as in Sumadija, on the Rudnik Mountain. Platinum deposits in Serbia are usually found in Pomoravlje, or in the vicinity of Vrnjacka Banja and Trstenik.
Source: serbianmonitor.com
