Everlasting Value: The Potential For Gold And Precious Metals

2 September 2021

Everlasting Value: The Potential For Gold And Precious Metals

KEY CONCLUSIONS

Shadow market for gold still prevails, so regulation needs to be improved

“In the regions of the Far East, where such activity is basically widespread – I mean, artisanal miners – it is often the case that no regulated activity is performed. That gives people an incentive to violate the law,” Pavel Volkov, State Secretary, Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and the Arctic.

“We need to make sure that people can deliver what they mine, so that the nuggets could be processed right here, and the end product would be a gold bar,” Alexei Moiseev, Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation.

Russian gold market has the potential to be in the lead

“We expect the global production of refractory and double refractory ores to grow in the coming years, considering the environmental restrictions adopted in China. The Russian production using the environmentally friendly autoclave oxidation technology may become a good alternative for the foreign producers of concentrate from double refractory ores,” Alexander Pleshakov, Vice President, Polymetal Management Company.

Gold has investment potential

“From a standpoint of investment, gold belongs to a class of strategic investment. It has amazing properties: gold is a liquid and safe asset, it is a way to diversify an investment portfolio, gold is profitable,” Tatiana Fic, Director of Public Policy and Central Banking, World Gold Council.

PROBLEMS

For legal mining partnerships, it is more cost-efficient to buy gold from artisanal miners

“When they buy from illegal suppliers, the price of gold is on average two or more times <...> lower than the average market price. This is especially the case for Magadan Region, and other regions of the Far East as well. Some legal mining partnerships obtain licenses for the development of deposits, but they do not actually produce, <...> they merely imitate this activity. In this case, it is more cost-efficient for the cooperatives to buy gold from artisanal miners, rather than bear taxation and other legal administrative and production costs,” Pavel Volkov, State Secretary, Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and the Arctic.

Secondary raw materials are exported, sometimes illegally, due to lack of capacity for processing them

“It is impossible to process antimony concentrate, for us and for Russia in general; even though we sent requests to multiple organizations, they were all denied, <...> so we have to export the concentrate to China and South Korea, in small volumes,” Sergey Zhuravlev, Vice President of Government Relations, Polyus.

“We have fairly significant quantities of secondary raw materials, which are mainly taken out of the country. We have a technological problem. <...> That is the first problem. The second problem we have is with the EAEU countries <...>, as you know. Several taxes are applied on production and export from Russia, primarily the MET at a 6.5% rate. How to avoid it? Raw materials are exported to neighboring countries by transit – it is easily done. It becomes more profitable once they do not pay the severance tax on exports and gold mining,” Alexei Moiseev, Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation.

“In Russia, there are basically no production facilities for industrial processing of notation concentrates produced from sulfide ores with a high percentage of organic carbon, as well as a high percentage of harmful impurities, such as arsenic or antimony. The absence of such production facilities is both the reason and the resource base for the export of gold-bearing concentrate outside the Russian Federation,” Alexander Pleshakov, Vice President, Polymetal Management Company.

SOLUTIONS

Legislation that would contribute to increased market transparency

“A bill has been drafted, that provides a simple, understandable mechanism of access to gold mining, based on the analysis of global and domestic experience,” Pavel Volkov, State Secretary, Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and the Arctic.

“I would also like to express my opinion on allowing mining for individuals. In general, we are in favor of that, but we would like to see a protective zone of several kilometres around the existing placer deposits,” Sergey Zhuravlev, Vice President of Government Relations, Polyus.

“First of all, we work with our partners in the foreign governments. We are trying to get them, under several agreements, to establish regular control over the export of raw materials. As for what we can do on our part, we can set things in order with the laboratories [which assess the gold content in raw materials in bad faith – Ed.]. 90% of those labs were shut down by the National Accreditation body, making it impossible for them to analyze raw materials. <...> So that the people, the bona fide entrepreneurs, have somewhere to go to – basically, a place for arbitration where they could confirm that their raw materials are genuine. We decided to create such a laboratory at the Federal Assay Office,” Alexey Moiseev, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation.

For more information, visit the ROSCONGRESS.ORG Information and Analytical System.

Everlasting Value: The Potential For Gold And Precious Metals

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