Owing to a large amount of papers the applicants have to prepare in order to apply for the development of Udokanskoye ore deposit in Chita Region (as the deposit is quite unique in many ways) as well as in order to make sure the tender is as transparent as it can be, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment decided to prolong the application deadline by 30 days. The original deadline was May 14, 2008.

The Ministry hasn’t received any applications yet, their press officer reports.

Udokanskoye deposit’s capacity has been estimated at 187,000 tons of ore a year, which will come to 15% of the total ore production in Russia. The deposit development project provides for a whole set of ore processing enterprises with the total annual capacity of 180,000 tons. This project requires $1.6bn in terms of investments and is to create several thousand new jobs as well as to bring the state over $3bn in terms of profit.

Among the tender’s potential applicants is Russian Ore consortium (Russian Railway Public Company, UMMC Holding, and VTB).