A joint venture between Chinese mining giant Shenhua and a unit of Russian resource conglomerate En+ Group has acquired license to explore and develop the Zashulanskoye coal deposit in the Transbaikal territory in Russia, En+ said Wednesday.
The deposit is close to the Russia-China border and is estimated to contain 252 million mt of high calorific value coal with low sulfur.
The joint venture -- Razrez Ugol -- won the right to explore and develop the deposit in a government auction in which it bid at $7.4 million.
Razrez plans to build an open-pit mine that can produce up to 6 million mt/year of coal which can be sold to power producers in Russia or exported to China.
