Valeriy Medjlumyan: for the recent 20 years VallexGroup investments totaled over $700mln in Armenia and in Artsakh

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.