ArmInfo.There is every reason to assert that Teghout field will be activated soon. The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said this on March 27 in the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia.
According to him, a lot of work is currently underway on this field. "People who are involved in this process have assured us that there will be serious positive progress on this project and the enterprise will resume work very soon," the head of government said.
TO note, in late January in an interview with reporters Armenian Minister of Economic Development and Investments Tigran Khachatryan expressed the possibility of restarting the Teghut deposit. He stated this on January 31 in an interview with journalists. According to him, organizational issues with the bank (VTB Group - Ed.) Will be settled in the manner prescribed by law. "The question is - is there any hope to restart Teghut? Yes, there is hope. I think nothing prevents to restart the mine - after clarifying relations with the bank," said the minister. According to him, organizational issues with the bank (VTB Group - Ed. note) Will be settled in the manner prescribed by law. "The question is - is there any hope to restart Teghut? Yes, there is hope. I think nothing prevents to restart the mine - after clarifying relations with the bank," the Minister said. Answering the question of how much damage is estimated for the country's economy from the mine's downtime, Tigran Khachatryan said that in 2017 Teghout exported products of approximately $ 120 million. The negative effect for the Armenian economy in 2018 is exactly as estimated. The Armenian government in November 2007 approved the program for the exploitation of the Teghut copper-molybdenum mine. In terms of reserves, the Teghut deposit is the second in the republic after the Kajaran copper and molybdenum deposits in Syunik. Back in 1972, large-scale geological exploration was carried out, which resulted in confirmed reserves of 450 million tons of ore with a content of 1.6 million tons of copper and 99 thousand tons of molybdenum. The project due to environmental problems in February 2018 was suspended.
The operation of the field can be continued only after solving a number of technical and environmental problems, due to which the company, in fact, lost its credit support. On November 21, 2018, Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia Garegin Baghramyan told reporters that VTB Bank is picking up a new operator of the Teghut project.
To note, Vallex Group was established in 1998 and unites 20 subsidiary and affiliated companies. Among them, Teghut CJSC, founded in May 2006, 100% of the shares of CJSC belong to Teghut Investments Limited of Cyprus, 100% of whose voting shares, in turn, belong to Armenian Kopr Program CJSC, which is fully owned by Valery Mejlumyan, and also BaseMetals CJSC, which operates a copper-gold deposit in the village of Drmbon, Martakert region, NKR, Armenian Copper Program CJSC (ACP), which operates the Alaverdi copper smelter that produces blister copper.