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The overall area under licence for this programme is 1,162 sq.km.
This regional prospecting programme aims to secure a long-term precious metals resource base for Polymetal's new assets in the region: the Albazino processing plant and the Amursk POX plant.
Exploration efforts here are focused on the Nizhneamurskaya metallogenic zone, which covers the northeastern fault area from Komsomolsk-upon-Amur in the south to Shantar Islands in the north.
The key mineral resource in this area is gold. Two large gold deposits have been discovered within the metallogenic zone: Mnogovershinnoye and Albazino. There are also several smaller deposits, including Kutyn, Belaya Gora, and others. The exploration maturity of the area for lode gold is generally low. Government geological surveys have discovered numerous direct signs of gold ore mineralisation. Exploration efforts in previous years focused mainly on areas showing quartz veining but only small sub-commercial deposits were found. The discovery of the large Albazino gold ore deposit calls for a revision of the existing view that the chances of finding gold ore in the Nizhneamursk metallogenic zone are low. Polymetal believes that a radical change in the prospecting approach here could lead to the discovery of several worldclass gold ore deposits.
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The new processing conglomerate now being built (the Albazino concentrator plus the Amursk POX plant) is situated within the boundaries of the Nizhneamursk metallogenic zone. The regional exploration programme will gradually be expanded to cover the majority of the new promising areas in this zone. The Company will secure the prospecting and mining licences for these areas. The first steps in that direction were made in 2008 and 2009, when Polymetal secured licences for the Agniye-Afanasyevskiy, Kherpuchinskiy, Vostochniy and other areas. The Company will work to secure additional licences for the Amursk regional programme in 2010-2011.
Agniye-Afanasyevskaya area
In 2009 Polymetal acquired a licence for prospecting, exploration and production of vein gold in the Agniye-Afanasyevskaya area (441 sq.km) In recent years, several reputable specialists from the government geological service have expressed the opinion that there is a good chance of finding large gold deposits in this area’s carbonic sulphide rock.
Reconnaissance work conducted by the Company in 2009 confirmed the presence of goldbearing rock and identified a number of priority areas for further exploration in 2010.
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