Buryatia Plans Potash and Alumina Complex With One-Million-Tonne Annual Capacity
Buryatia and Baikal Nedra Geo have agreed to develop the Novouoyansky potash complex at the Kalyumnoye deposit. The plant is expected to produce up to 1 million tonnes of potash-group products and 700,000 tonnes of metal-group products annually at full capacity.
Agreement sets out a large industrial project
The government of Russia’s Republic of Buryatia and Baikal Nedra Geo have signed an agreement to build the Novouoyansky potash complex in the Severo-Baikalsky district. According to Kommersant, the agreement was concluded at the Eastern Economic Forum and announced by Buryatia head Alexey Tsydenov.
The proposed plant will produce potash fertilizers and alumina using raw material from the local Kalyumnoye deposit. Its planned portfolio includes potassium sulfate, potassium magnesium sulfate, potassium hydroxide, metallurgical-grade alumina, iron ore concentrate and precipitated silica. This mix would give the operation exposure to fertilizer, metallurgy and industrial chemical markets rather than making it dependent on a single product.
Deposit could support more than a century of production
Kommersant reports that the Kalyumnoye deposit contains an estimated 2 billion tonnes of synnyrite ore. The resource is expected to supply the production process for more than 100 years. The deposit covers an area of more than 41 square kilometres, providing the raw-material base for the proposed complex.
At full capacity, the plant is expected to produce up to 1 million tonnes per year of potash-group products and 700,000 tonnes per year in the metal-product group. The project is scheduled to reach its designed capacity in 2030–2031 and is expected to create about 1,000 jobs. The disclosed figures describe aggregate product groups; Kommersant did not provide a capacity breakdown for potassium sulfate, potassium magnesium sulfate, potassium hydroxide, alumina, iron ore concentrate or precipitated silica.
Licensing and infrastructure will shape execution
The deposit operator received its development licence in 2017. The licence grants the right to prospect, explore and extract synnyrite across the licensed area. Baikal Nedra Geo has now obtained a positive expert opinion for its exploration programme, an important preparatory step before the project can move through further development and construction stages.
Chief executive Daniil Bavykin said support from the Buryatia government and the Far East and Arctic Development Corporation would help deliver the project on schedule. The location in northern Buryatia nevertheless makes infrastructure a central execution issue: a complex processing several million tonnes of ore and shipping large volumes of fertilizers, alumina and concentrates will require dependable energy, transport and industrial services. The source did not disclose investment costs, financing terms, construction phases, processing technology or planned sales markets. Those details will determine how quickly the large mineral resource can be converted into commercially available capacity and which domestic or external buyers the plant can serve.
