Amaam North "Project F" Coal Mine

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Amaam North "Project F" Coal Mine (Северный Амаам; месторождение Фандюшкинское поле) is an operating coal mine in Alkatvaam, Anadyrsky, Chukotka, Russia.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Mine Name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
Amaam North "Project F" Coal Mine	Alkatvaam, Anadyrsky, Chukotka, Russia	62.966772, 178.766098 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the coal mine:

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Project Details

Table 2: Project status

Status	Status Detail	Opening Year	Closing Year
Operating	–	2017	–

Table 3: Operation details

Note: The asterisk (*) signifies that the value is a GEM estimated figure.

Capacity (Mtpa)	Production (Mtpa)	Year of Production	Mine Type	Mining Method	Mine Size (km2)	Mine Depth (m)	Workforce Size
–	1.523	2022	Surface	Open Pit	–	60*	392*

Table 4: Coal resources and destination

Total Reserves (Mt)	Year of Total Reserves Recorded	Total Resources (Mt)	Coalfield	Coal Type	Coal Grade	Primary Consumer/ Destination
23.8	–	85	Bering	Bituminous	Thermal & Met	–

Table 5: Ownership and parent company

Owner	Parent Company	Headquarters
Beringopromugol LLC	Tigers Realm Coal Ltd [100.0%]	Australia

Table 6: Historical production (unit: million tonnes per annum)

ROM or Saleable	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
ROM	0	0	0	0	1	1	1

Expansion/Extension

Table 6: Project status

* Added capacity of a coal mine refers to the enhancement in the mine's production capabilities beyond its initial production capacity.

Status	Status Detail	Project Type	Project Phase	Added Capacity (Mtpa)*	Start Year
Proposed	Construction	Expansion	–	0	–

Note: The above section was automatically generated and is based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker April 2024 release and the September supplement.

Background

Amaam North 'Project F' coal mine (месторождение Северный Амаам) is a surface mine near Alkatvaam, in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far East, Russia.

The project is also known as Fandyushkinskoye (месторождение Фандюшкинское поле). Amaam North 'Project F' coal mine is owned and operated by Beringopromugol LLC, which in turn is owned by Tigers Realm Coal Limited (Australia). Tigers Realm owns 100% of the project having bought out its partner B.S. Chukchi Investments in 2017.

Amaam North 'Project F' is part of the Tigers Realm Coal Amaam project, along with the proposed Amaam coal mine. The Amaam North and Amaam deposits are located within separate structural blocks of the Bering Coal Basin.

Amaam North 'Project F' coal mine started commercial mining in 2017. The mine produces both thermal and coking coal. It exports via Tigers Realm's Beringovsky coal terminal (located 37km away from the mine) to customers in Japan, Taiwan, China, Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam. The port was acquired in 2020, improving its outlook of coal expansion in the region.

Amaam North 'Project F' is comprised of a general exploration licence (Levoberezhny), the licence for Project F (permitted to mine until December 2034 and Zvonkoye (permitted to mine until 2038).

Production in 2021 reached 1.025 million tonnes. The coal mine continued operations in 2022 as usual, although there are some disruptions to the supply of equipment by foreign partners. Production in 2022 reached 1.523 million tonnes, of which 0.65 thermal coal and 0.875 coking coal. 0.796 million tonnes were delivered to Beringovsky coal terminal. The severe winters in Siberia mean Tigers can only ship coal to customers for between six and eight months every year from the Bering Sea coast in the Russian Far East of Chukotka.

Sanctions against Russian and the various counter-sanctions enacted by Russia have created a number of marketing and operational (primarily supply chain) challenges for the company. During 2022, the Group succeeded in establishing new client relationships as well as alternative supply sources. The challenges are, nevertheless, ongoing. Besides sanctions and supply chain issues, the company reported that sales were done at significant discounts (this was offset by high coal prices) and exchange rate fluctuations. Significant geopolitical uncertainty exists. However the local Russian suppliers re-engineered their supply chains with a dramatically increased emphasis on China. The company purchased Chinese coal haulage trucks instead of additional Scania trucks. It is also developing new customer relationships – mostly in China, as well as in India and Vietnam.

In April 2024, Tigers Realm Coal entered into a binding agreement to dispose of all f tis Russian assets for USD 49 million. Completion is subject to recevining the approval from Russian authorities. As of October 2024, the transaction to sell the assets to APM-Invest LLC was still on-going.

• Owner: Beringpromugol LLC
• Parent: Tigers Realm Coal Limited
• Location: 20km south west of Alkatvaam, in Anadyrsky District, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia.
• GPS Coordinates: 62.966772, 178.766098 (exact)
• Status: Operating
• Production:
  • 2022: 1.523 million tonnes
  • 2021: 1.127 million tonnes
  • 2020: 0.792 million tonnes
• Total Resource: 85.6 Mt
• Mineable Reserves: 23.8 Mt (2020, JORC Proved and Probable)
• Coal type: Bituminous (Thermal and Met)
• Mine Type: Surface
• Start Year: 2017
• Source of Financing: Sberbank

Litigation over Operations in Russia

In April 2023, Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) provided Tigers Realm Coal with an indicative assessment that its operations are against Russia sanctions regime. Transparency and international justice advocates called on the Australian government to avoid granting a permit to the company. In response Tigers Realm Coal filed a court case stating that it does not agree with DFAT’s indicative assessment and that it has filed a court case seeking to prove that its operations in Russia are not in breach of sanctions.

As of August 7th, the Federal Court made orders timetabling the progression of case. A hearing date was yet to be determined, however, the Federal Court has indicated the hearing is now likely to take place in March 2024. Depending on the outcome of the case, the company may have to cease operations in Russia.

Project Expansion Details

• Status: Proposed
• Capacity: Increase of capacity by 0.5Mtpa to reach 2Mtpa
• Start Year: 2023
• Source of Financing:

According to Russia's 'Programme for Coal Industry Development up to 2035' (published in June 2020), the target capacity of the coal mine is 2.5 million tonnes. However the company's plans for expansion in 2021/2022 were slightly lower at 2 Mtpa of capacity. In 2021 Beringopromugol also started the project of building a processing plant which should allow the company to sell a higher-value product. The construction of the processing plant was completed in April 2022.

In August 2021, Russian Federal Inspection Agency (Glavgosexpertiza) reviewed and approved the results of engineering surveys for the preparation of project documentation for the construction and operation of a quarry at the Zvonkoye coal deposit. The target capacity is 650 thousand tonnes as early as in 2023.

In its 2022 Annual Report, Tiger Realms Coal still referred to planned increase of production up to 2 Mtpa.

Environment

Indigenous Chukchi people live in the area of the Amaam coal project and have been in conflict over the area's natural resources with coal companies. In 2007 Northern Pacific Coal Mining (a subsidiary of Tigers Realm Coal) (translated from the Russian Severo-Tikhookeanskaya Ugolnaya Kompaniya / STUK) was granted a permit to develop the Beringovyi hard coal deposit. Initially, the permit was given under the condition that the company stay out of the territories of the indigenous obshchina (kinship-based community and cooperative), however the company chose to ignore this condition. Development and drilling by the company led to serious environmental damage including fuel spills and damage from moving heavy machinery in the summer period across the Amaam river. (In the summer months, the environment is particularly vulnerable due to the thawed ground).

In 2011, STUK hired the Chukotka Trading Company (ChTK) as a subcontractor, after which environmental violations continued and became more serious. In summer of 2011, right in the middle of the the salmon spawning season , ChTK hauled cargo from the Ushakov bay across the pristine tundra, the floodplains of the Amaam lagoon and the Amaam river all the way to the base using heavy transport equipment, inflicting irreparable damage to the river.

The indigenous people filed complaints and the coal company filed a countersuit and continued to operate. In February 2013 the arbitration court of Chukotka ruled in favour of the STUK and ordered that the obschchina had to pay the damages amounting to approximately 15,000 US Dollars. A few months later, in November 2013, the head of the Anadyr municipal district of Chukotka adopted a decree revoking the rights of the community to the given territory.

In 2015 the earlier ruling was overturned, meaning that the Chukchi did not have to pay the coal company but no compensation was offered to the Chukchi for damage to their land.

Reports from 2024 indicated continued damage to the local environment, particularly to the river Alkatvaam, which often has traces of coal/ dirt, less fish, fish with coal particles inside and mutant fish species.

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Additional data

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