CHROME RESOURCE BASE OF SIBERIA (WITHIN THE SIBERIAN FEDERAL DISTRICT)

S. S. Dolgushin, V. V. Zhabin, I. Yu. Loskutov, O. G. Sadur

Siberian Research Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineral Resources, Novosibirsk, Russia

Due to the brake up of the Soviet Union and the loss of the Kempirsayskoye deposit, the Russian Federation has suffered from a deficit of chrome, which was compensated by import. This caused the need for reinforcement of own chrome resource base at the expense of Siberia as well. Although, there has never been any special exploration for chromites in Siberia, and available data on them have been obtained from geological survey. This fact made it impossible to soundly appraise the resource potential of the region. Early in 2000s, producers and research institutions studied chrome mineralisation. In particular, SNIIGGiMS analysed and summarised previous works, as well as carried out mathematical modelling of data on gravity and magnetic fields from a number of chromite-bearing massifs. As a result, it was established that there are some prospects for discovering commercial deposits with total predicted resources of 185.07 mln t in 13 massifs. However, due to poor exploration maturity of Siberia, not a single deposit has been discovered yet, but dedicated works may result in discovery of small and even medium deposits that could meet the demands of the Siberian metallurgical industry.

Keywords: deposits, chromite, resources, chromite raw materials, ultrabasite.

DOI 10.20403/2078-0575-2017-6s-127-138