Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On September 12, 2011, Baikal Mining Company, a subsidiary of Metalloinvest, signed a memorandum of understanding with VEB and its subsidiary VEB Engineering to contribute to the development of the Udokan project to develop a copper deposit in the Trans-Baikal Territory. In 2011, ICBC committed a loan to Vnesheconombank (VEB) for the Udokan copper deposit development project. The loan agreement may involve Sinosure, an export insurance agency. However, it's unclear if the loan ever came to fruition. A later VEB source in 2019 stated that the financers of the project included VEB, Gazprombank and Sberbank, without any mention of ICBC. Further, no reference to ICBC after 2011 could be found on Baikal Mining Company's website. The company met with certain Chinese financial institutions in 2014, but did not specify which institutions. The status has been coded as Pledge accordingly. The Udokan deposit in the Trans-Baikal region has one of the largest deposits of copper reserves in the world. The loan was intented to build an industrial integrated facility to process 36 million tones of ore per year. The project is to be implemented through the Baikal Mining Company. The Baikal Mining Company website states that the project development cost would be between USD 6 billion and 8 billion. Reuters Russia reports that Metalloinvest hoped to raise USD 3.8 billion for the project.