ArmInfo. Minister of Economic Development and Investments of Armenia Suren Karayan visited Teghut copper-molybdenum mine belonging to the Vallex Group industrial group. During the visit to the enterprise, the Minister got acquainted with the works at the Teghut Mining Complex, as well as with the forthcoming field development programs.
According to Armenian Economy Development and Investment Ministry press service, during the visit, the delegation headed by Suren Karayan visited the mine itself, got acquainted with its infrastructure, the work of the Teghut mine-mill plant and the state of the tailing dump.
Well-known businessman Valery Mejlumyan, who is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vallex Group, informed the Minister that the total amount of investments in the development of the Teghout project already exceeded $ 400 million. Overall, the Group's investment in the development of the mining industry in Armenia and Artsakh for the past 20 years amounted to about $ 700 million. For only in 2016 the Vallex group paid over $ 40 million in taxes and payments to the state treasury of Armenia and the NKR.
According to Mejlumyan, today about 1150 employees work at the Teghut project and are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. The confirmed reserves of Teghout, according to the geological survey data of Soviet times, are 450 million tons of ore. Of these, a fifth was confirmed on the basis of new research.
Minister Karayan also visited another company affiliated with Vallex Group of the Armenian Copper Program Company (ACP), Alaverdi Metallurgical Combine. Heads of the enterprise noted that the production capacity of the enterprise allows processing up to 50 thousand tons of copper concentrate annually and producing about 13 thousand tons of blister copper. The plant employs 600 people.
With the participation of Karayan in Alaverdi, a meeting of the interdepartmental group established on instruction of Prime Minister of Armenia was held to discuss issues related to the provision of assistance to Armenian Copper Program JSC on construction of a new copper smelter.
The program on exploitation of the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit was approved by Armenian Government in November 2007. By reserves, Teghut deposit is the second in the country after the Kajaran copper and molybdenum deposit in Syunik. Back in 1972, large-scale geological exploration work was carried out here, which confirmed the reserves of 450 million tons of ore with a content of 1.6 million tons of copper and 99,000 tons of molybdenum.
As it was informed earlier, in 2017 in Armenia big investments are expected in the mining sector of production.According to the head of the department of the Agency for Mineral Resources, Norms and Analytics of the Ministry of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of the Republic of Armenia Shushanik Keropyan, four companies - GeoPromining Gold, Lydian Armenia, Teghut and Vayk Gold intend to invest $ 180 mln. More than $ 158 million will be spent on preparations for the exploitation of the gold mine Amulsar. Investments will be made within three quarters of this year. It is envisaged that in each quarter the volume of investments will make $ 52.8 million, which will make it possible to create hundreds of new jobs. At the beginning of the year, the number of employees employed in this program was 360 people. It is expected that in the next two years this figure will increase to 1.2-1.3 thousand people. This year, the company "GeoPromining Gold" will invest $ 10 million. Within the program it is planned to re-equip the Ararat concentrator and the gold deposit in Sotq. Almost the same amount of investments will be made for the development of the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit. The program has already started.