Eurasia Mining makes good progress in Ural Mountains

Eurasia Mining provided an update on its West Kytlim and Monchetundra projects on Thursday, having commenced mining operations at its 75% owned West Kytlim Alluvial Platinum Mine in the Ural Mountains in the autumn.

The AIM-traded firm said at that project, shipments of raw platinum concentrate to a refinery in Ekaterinburg continued through the mining season with a final shipment in the second week of December.

A final statement on revenue from platinum, gold, palladium, iridium and rhodium revenues is expected from the refinery in January.

The company said the project is performing well, while the deferred payment basis from the refinery required the use of a debt facility from Sanderson Capital Partners, partly as a temporary interim financing.

At Monchetundra, a feasibility study was officially submitted on Thursday for approvals at the State Commission on Mineral Reserves.

That document looks the economic extraction of the reserves already identified at two open pit targets on Eurasia's 80% owned Monchetundra License.

The reserves, when approved, will represent the maiden reserves defined for the license.

In addition, Eurasia said an engineering procurement and construction contract is already in place with Sinosteel, a Chinese state owned group operating primarily in mining, trading, equipment manufacturing and engineering.

The signed EPC contract has an obligation for Sinosteel to provide $150m financing, subject to certain conditions, with production to commence on a turnkey basis by Sinosteel.

“We look forward to updating shareholders on further developments at our Monchetundra and West Kytlim projects and thank our shareholders for their support through what has been an exciting and meritable year for the company,” said managing director Christian Schaffalitzky.

“2016 has also been a pivotal year in that the company made the transition from exploration to production of platinum and gold at West Kytlim and with regard to a successful award of an EPC Contract and associated financing from Sinosteel.

“We are grateful to our shareholders for their commitment and support in our exciting journey.”