The hydrometallurgical launch
Udokan's hydrometallurgical plant was launched by video link during the Eastern Economic Forum, Kommersant reported on 2 September 2026. President Vladimir Putin gave the start signal. Udokan Copper board chairman Valery Kazikaev and chief executive Alexey Yashchuk participated. The plant forms part of the development of the Udokan copper deposit in Russia.
The start of mine development
Kommersant's 10 August 2020 report recorded mining and preparatory works at the Zapadny open pit, with incidental ore extraction. The operator, then Baikal Mining Company, planned work involving 335,000 tonnes of incidental ore and 808,000 cubic metres of rock that year. Subsequent preparation covered platforms, roads and waste-rock dumps for full-scale open-pit mining. The development plan combined a concentrator, hydrometallurgical production and an open pit. It envisaged processing up to twelve million tonnes of ore and producing up to 125,000 tonnes of copper annually, with an expected deposit life of fifty to sixty years.
First concentrate in 2023
Vedomosti reported on 11 September 2023 that the concentrator's equipment had been launched by video link at the Eastern Economic Forum. Udokan Copper said the plant had produced its first copper concentrate. Construction of the complex had begun in 2019, with mine development following in summer 2020. The deposit lies in Kalarsky district, thirty kilometres from Novaya Chara station on the Baikal-Amur railway. The report put resources under the JORC framework at 26.7 million tonnes and ore copper content at 1.05%. Commissioning was described in stages: concentrator grinding and enrichment lines, followed by hydrometallurgical lines.
Equipment commissioning reported in December
An Interfax report dated 20 December 2023 described equipment testing and a planned second-quarter 2024 hydrometallurgical launch. That was the company's timetable at the time. The testing programme covered:
- Seven fine-cleaning filter presses and one bulk-concentrate filter press, plus discharge conveyors and screw mixers.
- A robotic crane designed to handle up to 250 cathode sheets an hour, alongside automatic testing of the cathode-stripping machine.
- A 450-kilowatt ball mill for lime preparation and three flocculant-preparation installations.
The company said filter presses would separate copper-bearing slurry into liquid and copper-rich solid material on membranes, before atmospheric leaching.
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