Business name

Quota for 2004 (kg)

Fact. performance

% completed

for the same period last year

deviation (+,-)

CJSC a/s Iskra (including Baunt)

20.8

17.0

OAO Priisk Tsipikansky

15.0

CJSC Vitimgeoprom (including LLC Gornyak Vitima)

CJSC Bagdarinsk Mining and Geological Company

12.0

17.0

OOO a/s Eleninsky

18.0

12.0

CJSC a/s Rassvet

SREO Dylacha

10.0

OOO a/s Sever

13.0

13.0

CJSC a/s Voskhod

OOO Chinakan

OOO a/s Ukshum

Total:

1420

60.6

91.8

If the State Duma passes the law, it will be easy for any of us to start the life of a free prospector and go for a bird of good luck to Vitim, Tsipikan and others. gold-bearing rivers Buryatia.

For more than 200 years of Russian history of gold mining, "black" prospecting is not a new profession. The news about the riches of the taiga attracted tens of thousands of hunters for good luck. IN different times people who individually mined the yellow metal were called freemen, single prospectors, and even predators.

"Black Diligence"

In Buryatia, the history of "black prospecting" goes back to 1844, when 7 spools of 9 shares, that is, 30 grams 216 milligrams of yellow metal, were mined on the territory of the present Bauntovsky district at the mines "Mariinsky" and "Innokentievsky". Literally in 10-15 years, as Vladimir Kazulin, a well-known local historian of the Bauntovsky district, tells, all the rivers, springs and valleys of the Vitim, Vitimkan, Chiny, Tsipa, Tsipikan were dug up by gold miners. Thus began the gold rush in the Barguzin taiga, as Baunt was called until 1925. Yakov Frizer, a major gold miner of the Barguzin taiga, in his book Gold Mining in the Barguzin District and Its Needs, published in Moscow in 1901, writes:

Due to the rich content of gold, work at the Solovyov mines has revived. The times of wide mining revelry have returned. Workers went to work, which lasted only a few hours, in smart boots, flannel blouses and beaver hats with watches in their pockets and rings in their hands. Some appeared wearing fox beshmets and silk sashes bought for expensive price from the manager's shoulders...

Here the gold miner wrote about those who sometimes worked for hire in the mines for meager wages. But there were free searchers and gold miners in the taiga, who worked alone or in small close-knit teams. They counted on their own strength, skill and, of course, luck. More than a hundred and fifty years have passed since then, but even now there are many such people. According to the Union of Gold Producers of the Russian Federation, in the main gold-bearing regions of the country - in Chukotka, in Yakutia, the Krasnoyarsk and Trans-Baikal Territories, the Magadan, Amur and Irkutsk regions, the Republic of Buryatia, a total of more than 12 thousand people are engaged in black mining.

"Golden Initiative"

According to Anatoly Kushnarev, chairman of the People's Khural of the Republic of Belarus committee on economic policy, the law on "free delivery" is being discussed in the State Duma, and it may be adopted this year. However, until the law is adopted in final reading, even the smallest handful of precious grains found by the police in a person's pocket threatens to turn into a period of two to seven years. So says the 191st article of the Criminal Code.

The issue of legalizing the free supply of gold was raised with renewed vigor at the recent inter-parliamentary association "Parliamentary Association of the North-West of Russia" and the Parliamentary Association "Far East and Transbaikalia" held recently in Blagoveshchensk. Buryatia was represented at this forum by deputies Tsydenzhap Batuev and Anatoly Kushnarev.

Another interesting proposal is to issue a permit for gold mining for the population under a simplified system on dumps, where the dredge has already passed, but the precious metal still remains, - said Anatoly Kushnarev.

"Pros and cons"

Valery Nazarov, General Director of the Zapadnaya Prospectors' Artel from the Muisky District, expressed the position of the republic's miners.

The position of the majority of mining enterprises towards the adoption of this law is extremely negative. All the positive expected moments will be leveled, first of all, by an increase, I am sure that this will be the case, theft from existing mining enterprises. This law is anti-lobbied by us and, I think, will not be adopted. I'm not saying that only our organization is against it, it is also the majority of gold mining enterprises represented by the chairman of the Union of Prospectors and the chairman of the Union of Gold Producers of Russia Sergey Kashub, - said Valery Nazarov.

Supporters of the legalization of free bringing do not expect a big economic effect, a significant increase in gold mining due to this law. But the recognition of free bringing is important in social terms, supporters of the bill say. By the way, the chairman of the Magadan Regional Duma, Sergei Abramov, spoke about this at the inter-parliamentary association in Blagoveshchensk. He spoke about the experience of the pilot region. According to him, "free delivery" did not lead to an increase in gold production, but significantly reduced social tension.

A difficult issue for the region is the permission of free bringing. Modern Russian legislation does not provide for the use of non-industrial placers, - said Nikolai Kovalev, head of the Bauntovsky Evenki district. - In order to obtain permission to mine gold, it is necessary to conduct exploration, calculate and approve reserves. There are no reserves in non-commercial placers (by definition), and no approved reserves - no mining permit. It is necessary to correct the legislation so that it would be possible to issue licenses for the extraction of gold from non-commercial placers.

The northerners raised this issue in March during the visit of acting. head of Alexei Tsydenov to the Bauntovsky district. Not so long ago, the Bauntovsky district made proposals to the agenda of the congress of deputies of all levels, which will be held in Ulan-Ude in October. Chairman of the Council of Deputies Alexander Ochirov proposed to re-enter the federal level with the law "on the free supply" of gold.

Endeavor means to try

In his memoirs, V.I. Krasnoyarov writes: “After all, before 1954, as it was before, I lathered a gram and passed it. They immediately received the money, and no one asked where they got it. After the war, the front-line soldiers themselves organized the extraction of metal, conducted reconnaissance. After all, you had to feed your family. And schoolchildren also worked on gold all summer. From the age of 15 he washed gold with his father, 15 km from the Borovsky site. They used butara, a walk-through to thaw the sands in winter, carried firewood on horseback, sawed it by hand. The miners of the past know how it was. Hard time but no one complained about any crisis because everyone was busy. Why not recall this experience now, while there are still old miners who remember how it is done? After all, this method of extraction also has its own characteristics and specifics. They could teach the youth in special courses. The area has always been supported by mining. After all, after the technique has been worked out, each board is left with rock for manual mining. The free supply is beneficial to everyone, and, first of all, to the district. These are deductions to the budget, and new jobs.”

Mining tourism

By the way, the main argument of the opponents of free bringing: "The state will not be able to control the work of miners." In their opinion, the legalization of the free supply will not lead to any noticeable increase in gold production. On a national scale, this will amount to hundreds of kilograms, that is, fractions of a percent. And today, without the adoption of the law, a large number of of people is engaged in the extraction of gold in a primitive manual way. And they are forced, willingly or not, to come into conflict with the law. Some of them fall under the control of criminal structures.

In most countries, they have long accepted "free delivery" as a given and understood that there is no reason to ban mining. Ultimately, the precious metal will end up in the state piggy bank anyway. In the USA, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, even “gold or mining tourism” has gained popularity. For a modest fee, the mines give out a prospector's tray and offer to try their luck.

Help site
The draft law provides that mining will be allowed in depleted industrial sites, alluvial and small deposits with reserves of up to 10-15 kilograms of gold. precious metals private individuals. On the this moment in Russia, there are thousands of sites where gold reserves are less than 10 kg. For industrial production, they are of no interest, however, private entrepreneurs could continue to wash the gold left after the mining of placers. In order for individual entrepreneurs to be able to mine gold, according to the authors of the bill, it is necessary to simplify the procedures for accessing the subsoil for Russian citizens, issue them without a tender (auction) simplified licenses for the use of sites, introduce a simplified taxation system for them, as well as a simplified procedure for accepting gold. Now individual booty gold, silver and non-ferrous metals, which existed in tsarist Russia, and even in the Soviet Union until 1954 inclusive, is prohibited in our country.

The Republic of Buryatia belongs to the areas of formation of a new SME with attractive geological and economic indicators and, along with the Irkutsk and Chita regions, belongs to the Baikal gold-bearing region.

The forecast resources of the Republic of Buryatia are 3.92% of the total in Russia (13th place).

The main share of predicted resources is located in the North Baikal, Muya and East Sayan geological and economic regions.

The balance reserves of gold in Buryatia are recorded in 304 deposits, including 282 alluvial; 19 indigenous, 1 man-made and 2 complex.

The Republic of Buryatia in terms of balance reserves in primary and alluvial gold deposits (excluding complex deposits) ranks 14th in Russia (1.95%) among the subjects of the Federation. The basis of the mineral resource base of gold in Buryatia is the explored reserves of the deposits of the East Sayan (44%), adjacent Severo-Baikal, Mui and Ikat-Bagdarinsky geological and economic regions, in which 43% of the balance reserves of the republic are concentrated, in the Dzhidinsky and Kurba-Eravnensky regions accounts for 13%.

The balance gold reserves of Buryatia, enclosed in primary deposits, amount to 53.7%. The average gold content in the developed deposits is 16.2-21.7 g/t, in those being prepared for development - 7.3-21.6 g/t. The main share of the balance reserves of ore gold is concentrated in such deposits as the Zun-Kholbinskoye (Eastern Sayan) and Irokindinskoye (South Muysky Range).

About 30% of gold reserves are contained in complex polymetallic deposits, which are currently not being developed.

Alluvial gold reserves are 16.4%. The average gold content in sands ranges from 350-600 g/m 3 for shallow placers to 3-6 g/m 3 for deep placers.

The distributed fund contains 100% of ore gold reserves and 70.5% of alluvial gold.

The least attractive alluvial deposits remained in the undistributed fund - small, remote, low-grade and buried placers. Currently, only one deep-seated placer is mined in the territory of the Republic of Buryatia. In a small volume on the territory of the republic, repeated mining of technogenic placers and hale-efel dumps is being carried out.

Since 1993, the increase in alluvial gold reserves has ceased to compensate for their redemption during mining.

Since 1986, the overall level of production in the republic has been steadily growing until 2002 (from 1612 to 8170 kg) and then began to decline, reaching 6145 kg in 2008 (this happened due to a decrease in placer gold production (since 2004 it has fallen by more than 2 times: from 2982 to 1172 kg.) 2010 was not a turning point (Fig. 1).

In the period 2000 - 2004, placer gold mining more or less stabilized, reaching almost 3 tons. But since 2001, it has declined sharply.

It is not a big revelation that the mineral resource complex of Russia, including Buryatia, created before the beginning of the 90s and possessing high resistance to survival, in the conditions of an ill-conceived reform of the economy, turned out to be in a critical state. Over the past fifteen years, the extraction of minerals, including gold, has not been compensated by the increase in reserves. Explored reserves have declined sharply, and their quality has also deteriorated.

Since 2002, the existing mechanism for the reproduction of SMEs was abolished, federal tasks in the field of geology were transferred to budget financing, and the constituent entities of the Russian Federation practically lost sources of investment in the study of subsoil.

Due to the insufficient reproduction of the mineral resource base, the preparation of placer gold facilities for licensing lags behind the level of demand.

On the territory of Buryatia, there are several capable enterprises that can themselves carry out geological exploration and replenish the SME (LLC Sininda, LLC s/a Kurba, CJSC Vitimgeoprom). In other cases, the quality of explored reserves is low, since small artels are not staffed with qualified personnel.

Despite the rather high cost of a gram of gold, its mining in the Zakamensky and Dzhidinsky districts has ceased, although there are prospects there. The predicted resources according to Ignatovich are 14.6 tons, including cat. R 1 - 1.2 t; R 2 - 2.3 t and R 3 11.1 t.

Reserves of the distributed fund are located mainly in 4 out of 9 gold-placer regions (Fig. 2):

The decline in gold production leads to a deterioration in the social situation of the population and the outflow of the workforce associated with gold mining. The decrease in gold mining, in addition to the above reasons, is mainly due to:

– with the absence of centralized investment loans;

- with a high level of taxation;

- the dependence of many enterprises, especially in the Bauntovsky district, on the Bank, which is the holder of controlling stakes.

All of the above does not allow mining enterprises to achieve the necessary profitability to ensure normal reproduction of products, therefore, at present, many enterprises are on the verge of ceasing production activities due to financial bankruptcy, which will inevitably lead to a massive decline in gold production in the republic. In alluvial gold mining, it has been going on for 3 years.

Ways to increase gold mining are seen:

– in changing the tax policy and creating legal conditions for preferential taxation to attract investors and entrepreneurs to the gold mining industry;

- to increase labor productivity;

– in replacing outdated washing and finishing equipment with more modern ones, which will increase metal production by 200–260 kg (20%) per year due to additional extraction of fine gold. One of the real ways to increase the production of alluvial gold is also the improvement of the technology for processing gold sands using highly efficient modern washing and finishing equipment (PHB-1000, Romashka, MOD-2, MOD-0.2, concentration tables, various separators, etc.). d.). The use of such equipment will increase gold production by 10-20% compared to traditional technologies;

- in changing the policy of managing enterprises by financiers - to professional geologists;

– in replacing auctions for small deposits (up to 100 kg) with tenders. From the analysis of the data of the territorial balance of reserves, it follows that some subsoil users, having received a significant number of licenses for placer gold objects, do not show sufficient activity in their development. At the objects declared in the “Explored” column, reserves have been registered for years ten years ago, at many objects “Developed” and “Prepared for development”, according to the annual accounting of TBZ, there is zero production. It is difficult to explain this by waiting for the rise in gold prices, since prices for it are now higher than ever, and most likely, they can “wait” for their decline. Then both marginally active and even part of the active reserves quickly transform into inactive ones;

– in supporting small enterprises in the production of deposits with residual reserves and low quality.

- in assisting in the revaluation of residual reserves, since the enterprises themselves, as a rule, do not have qualified specialists.

– in the true picture of objects during licensing, on which mining operations were carried out.

To increase the efficiency of geological exploration for placer gold, first of all, it is necessary to take organizational measures to strengthen the geological and technical services of enterprises performing exploration, increase the technical equipment of work, as well as strict control by the Department over the direction and methodology of work, the quality of work and documentation.

Currently, mining from deep-seated placers has almost completely stopped, although they are all licensed (in some places, sluggish work is being carried out).

In conclusion, we can name several gold placer regions where you can get an increase in placer gold reserves: the Severobaikalsky region (the valleys of the Sininda, Namama, Ukolkit, Turlikon, Amnunda rivers), the predicted resources of the Olokit and Bol rivers. Chuya are estimated at 24.5 tons (Pozdnyakova, 2008); Muisky district (the rivers Yanguda, Kelyana, Sunuekit, the predicted resources of which are estimated at 21 tons); Bauntovsky district (basins of the Verkh Tsipa, Amalat, Kydzhimit rivers); Yeravninsky district. In the East Sayansky PZR, it is recommended to carry out a small amount of prospecting (drilling) work at the Samartinskaya PZR in order to possibly identify deep-seated buried placers of gold and transfer the predicted resources of category P 3 (9.2 tons) into industrial categories.

As can be seen from all of the above, the situation of the gold mining industry is difficult, but not hopeless.