Precious metals miner Polymetal has sold the Khakanja assets to a group of Russian buyers for $30-million in cash and assumed debt, advancing its strategy of selling smaller, short-lived assets.
The assets comprise the 600 000 t/y processing plant, other related infrastructure at Khakanja, and old stockpiles at Khakanja, Avlayakan and Ozernoye deposits with current ore reserves of about 0.1-million ounces of gold equivalent (GE).
The transaction also includes advanced exploration properties of Kundumi with estimated mineral resources of 140 000 oz Koz of GE and Mevachan.
The assets are located in the Okhotsk and Ayan-May municipal districts of the Khabarovsk Territory in the Far East of the Russian federation.
Polymetal developed Khakanja, in the Khabarovsk Territory, as a greenfield operation and commissioned the plant in 2003. The facility produced about two-million ounces of GE in 15 years of operation.
However, the firm said that Khakanja’s production profile was shrinking with the 2020 base-case production estimate amounting to only about 2% of the group’s total.
It is also a high-cost operation with the all-in sustaining cost for 2019 estimated to be more than $1 000/oz of GE.
The reserve base is also depleted with only about two years of mine life, while the project has limited near-mine exploration upside.
Last month, Polymetal sold its Svetlobor platinum exploration project to a group of Russian buyers for $5.5-million in cash and at the end of October, it got rid of the Kapan polymetallic mine, in Armenia in a $55-million transaction with Chaarat Holdings.