Bogatyr Access Komir

Bogatyr Komir (Russian Богатырь Комир; Kazakh Богатырь Көмір; English Bogatyr Coal) is the largest coal mining group in Kazakhstan. With a production of 42 million tonnes of coal in 2008, it had a share of circa 40% of the country's coal output (totalling 105 million tons in 2008).

The company mines the "Bogatyr Mine" near the city of Ekibastuz in Pavlodar province of Kazakhstan. With an output of 56.8 million tonnes of coal in 1985, the Bogatyr Mine entered the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world's largest single coal mine. Since then this level of production was not sustained, and in 2007 the production of the mine was 40 million tons of coal. Together with the neighbouring Severnyi mine, the oldest mine in the Ekibastuz coal basin, they hold reserves estimated at 4.5 billion ton of coal, which at the current production rate give them a residual lifetime of over 100 years.

History

The discovery of coal in the Ekibastuz basin goes back to the year 1867, and some 30 years later the company Voskresenskiy Mining JSC was created to exploit this mineral resource. In 1913 the English company “Kirgizian Mining JSC” (with main shareholders the English millionaire Lesly Urkart and later American president Herbert Hoover), got a concession for mining the coal.^[1] In 1918 the Sovjet regime made a nationalisation of the coal and energy companies. But only in 1954 the real start of coal extraction begun in the mine then renamed "Central Mine". The commissioned capacity in 1954 was 3 million tons of coal per year. Since then Ekibastuz coal was shipped to the power plants of the southern Ural region of the Russian Federation. The first train was delivered to the new Troitsk power plant near the Kazakh-Russian border, at that time the most powerful (2,500 MW) power station in the Southern Urals and specially designed and built for burning the high-ash coal type of Ekibastuz. From 1965 till 1979 the capacity of the open-cast mine was gradually increased to reach 50 million ton per year.

In September 1996, the national company "JSC Ekibastuzkomir" (and its mine Bogatyr) was privatised by the Kazakh government, the American company Access Industries bought the 70%-property of Bogatyr mine and Stepnoy mine, and the name was changed to Bogatyr Access Komyr, LLP. Later on the American company sold the mines to the Russian company United Company RUSAL, the world’s largest vertically integrated aluminum producer, that ensured stable fuel supply to Urals thermal power stations that provide electricity for RUSAL’s Urals plants.

On November 29, 2007, a joint venture was established between UC RUSAL and Samruk-Energo (the energy branch of Kazakh state holding Samruk, to operate the coal mines of Bogatyr Access Komir.^[2] The rationale for this deal was the intention of the Kazakh government to return coal reserves into state ownership due to their strategic importance for Kazakhstan's electric power sector. On April 16, 2008 it was announced that the price Samruk Energo had to pay to UC RUSAL for a 50-% stake was 345 million USD.

From March 2009 the coal company is managed by both shareholders, the Kazakhstani state holding Samruk-Kazyna and the Russian UC RUSAL, and the name was changed into Bogatyr Komir.

References

1. http://en.government.kz/site/news/112007/14: "An agreement on establishment of a joint venture between Samruk Holding and UC RUSAL has been signed"

External links

• Official site of Bogatyr Coal: http://www.bogatyr.kz (English, kasachisch und russisch)