Chairman of the Magadan Regional Duma Anatoly Shirokov said that existing laws do not allow involving technogenic placers – dumps left over from previous mining. According to him, the industry supports the idea of redeveloping these reserves, but getting to these resources is almost impossible. As a result, tens of tons of gold remain underground.
Shirokov mentioned the method of exploration and exploitation ranges (REP), which was successfully used in the Soviet Severovostokzoloto. The essence of the technology: production was carried out simultaneously with geological exploration. Miners clarified the contours of placers, found undeveloped territories, and put reserves on the balance sheet after the fact. The result was impressive: from 1972 to 1992, an additional 488.2 tons of gold were extracted in this way – more than 40% of the total.
Everything changed in 2016, when Rosgeolekspertiza prepared a letter that effectively banned this practice. Any manifestation of placer metal – be it an untouched deposit or a technogenic dump – is now required to be considered a full-fledged deposit. To start production, you need to calculate reserves and put them on the balance sheet. From that moment on, REP was banned from being used in geological exploration.
In 2025, methodological recommendations systematized the approaches, but retained the main limitation: without approved reserves, mining is still impossible. According to Shirokov, this slows down the development of gold mining, especially in conditions when light placers have already been selected, and significant volumes of metal remain in the dumps.
The problem is typical not only for Kolyma, but also for other regions where industrial mining of placer gold was carried out. A return to flexible methods for developing man-made objects would make it possible to bring additional resources into circulation without lengthy procedures for approving reserves.
Source: @zolteh
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