Ore reserves at Borska Reka underground site worth USD 30 billion – Zijin preparing for exploitation

The Chinese company Zijin, in cooperation with the Bor Institute for Mining and Metallurgy, has started preparing the main mining project of exploitation of the Borska Reka underground mining site. The location is estimated to contain reserves of nearly four million tons of copper, 130 tons of gold and over 1,000 tons of silver, whose value exceeds USD 30 billion, Novosti writes.

Data show that the site contains explored and determined geological reserves of 320 million tons of the ore, guaranteeing a 50-year exploitation period. However, it is assumed that Borska Reka in fact contains more than a billion tons of ore, with an average content of 1% copper, nearly three times as much as the RTB mines that are currently exploited.

The Borska Reka site, whose activation requires an investment of at least EUR 150 million, has so far been explored only up to the depth of 450 meters. The site is assumed to widen as the depth increases, along with a growing content of copper and noble metals.

Confirmation by the World Bank

The attractiveness of Borska Reka as a site, which resembles the underground copper mine Cukaru Peki in its mineral composition, is also shown by the fact that, in 2002, the World Bank, before opening the first tender for the sale of RTB Bor, published a study according to which the future of local mining should be based on exploring and exploiting this site.

Serbia Zijin Copper doo Bor

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Ambasada NR Kine Beograd

Institut za rudarstvo i metalurgiju Bor

RTB Bor

Borska reka

copper

gold

silver

exploitation of an underground site