02 June 2004 18:17
Bankrupt Russian coal mine leased to Chinese company for 49 years
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 2 June: A coal mine in the Sakhalin village of Sinegorsk has been leased for 49 years to a Chinese
company from Heilongjiang province. The solid fuel reserves at this mine amount to 43m tonnes. The Chinese miners plan
to extract 500,000 tonnes of coal annually. Four Chinese specialists, headed by the chief of the mining department for
Heilongjiang province, (?Kun Zhuxian) [untraced], have already arrived in Sinegorsk, which is a suburb of
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. This was announced today by Lyubov Gruzdeva, a spokeswoman for the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk mayor's
office.
The coal mine in Sinegorsk is 90 years old. It has been closed since 1 October 2003 because it is completely
bankrupt. Its combined debts amount to R147m. In order to reactivate the mine the Chinese company will have to invest
22m dollars in it. Chinese and Sakhalin specialists calculate that the enterprise will be lossmaking initially, but then
it will start to make a profit. The Chinese will start restoring order by fixing the roads, vehicles and electricity
networks. It is mostly workers from the PRC [People's Republic of China] who will be employed at the mine.
The chief engineer of the mine, Vitaliy Krasnov, said that at the moment 50 Sakhalin workers are maintaining a
skeleton service at the enterprise, but they will be replaced by Chinese specialists in early July.
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
