Gazprombank will give money to Igor Altushkin for environmentally unsafe Tominsk GOK

The bank will open a credit line for 54 billion rubles for 12 years. The cost of the whole project is estimated at 77.8 billion rubles. Local residents can only vainly hope that the money will be stolen and the GOK will not be built.
11.05.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
Gazprombank (GPB), which already provided RMK of Igor Altushkin with project financing for Mikheevsky GOK, will give a loan for a larger construction of Tominsky GOK. The project worth 77.8 billion rubles. and with a capacity of up to 110 thousand tons of copper per year, has long provoked protests by local eco-activists, which were heard in November last year by Vladimir Putin. Nevertheless, RMK continues the project.

GPB opened a credit line for 54.4 billion rubles. for 12 years in the framework of project financing of Tominsky GOK, which RMK is building in the Chelyabinsk region. This is a multi-currency line, which allows you to choose the limits in rubles, US dollars and euros depending on the currency of the contracts, the "b" in the GPB specified. The whole project is estimated at 77.8 billion rubles. Previously, GPB provided 60% of the 26.8 billion rubles. for the construction of the first stage of the Mikheevsky GOK company.

The reserves of the Tominsky deposit are about 2.5 million tons of copper, the project with a capacity of 100-110 thousand tons of copper in concentrate per year is planned to be launched in two stages, the first one is planned for the third quarter of 2019. RMK is going to use the spent Korkinsky coal mine for storage of production waste, such a scheme was developed at the request of the Chelyabinsk authorities after the protests of environmental activists. Although the project was officially launched in July 2017 with the participation of the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, in November Vladimir Putin, who visited Chelyabinsk, personally called the activist of the Stop-GOK movement Vasiliy Moscots, followed by a meeting of the representatives of the movement, RMK and the regional governor Boris Dubrovsky. In the RMK then they insisted that they received all the permits and expertise. In the company on May 10, they did not respond to Kommersant.

Irina Alizarovskaya from Raiffeisenbank says that the multi-currency credit line is the right choice, taking into account the purchase of imported equipment and the export earnings of Tominsky GOK. Project financing, as a rule, presupposes a grace period for the repayment of the body of the debt to 2-3 years, and the interest rate can be "a key CB rate plus 2%" (the analyst estimates the debt of the entire RMK group in three EBITDA).

The size of the investment is comparable to the one launched last year by the Bystrinsky GOK of Norilsk Nickel (260,000 tonnes of copper), but the timing of the launch seems somewhat optimistic, says Andrei Lobazov of Aton. According to him, the prospects for the economy of China, the world's largest copper consumer (50% of 23.67 million tons in 2017, according to ICSG) are not bad, although the growth in metal consumption there is slowing down (+ 1.3% in 2017 against +2, 5% in 2016). New projects in South America that were moved to 2018-2019 and profitable at current price levels should more than meet the growth in demand, the analyst believes, adding that the copper market looks balanced and it is difficult to expect a strong price increase from levels of about $ 6.8 -7 thousand per ton.

The source of Kommersant in the industry agrees that the launch of Tominskiy looks more realistic in 2-3 years, if the timing of the construction of the Mikheevsky GOK is guided. But he, on the contrary, believes that the copper deficit in the market will increase in the coming years, as demand annually grows by 450 thousand tons, and new large projects, with the exception of Cobre Panama (Panama) and Katanga (Congo), are not on the market. Existing assets lose metal content in the ore, and the processing of copper scrap on average returns only 35% of retiring volumes to the market. According to CRU, the deficit in the market will be already from 2019, and by 2022 it will be about 380 thousand tons, whereas according to First Quantum, by 2022 the deficit will be only 121 thousand tons, and in 2025 the market will be surplus - 304 thousand tons.

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