Rostec appears to be completing its takeover of the Ak-Sug deposit from oligarch Prokhorov.

A Rostec subsidiary may receive a license for the Ak-Sug deposit in Tyva. The tender is yet to be held, but Sergey Chemezov’s state corporation has already been designated as its beneficiary. According to the terms of the bidding, only a company half of which is controlled by Rostec can win the competition. It is hard to imagine a more indiscriminate competition, and the competition seems like a mere formality!

Photo: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202408300048?index=4

In June 2024, Rosnedra revoked the Ak-Sug license from Golevskaya GRK LLC, which is part of Mikhail Prokhorov’s Intergeo Management Company. Rosnedra believed that Prokhorov’s company had failed to complete the infrastructure construction on time and made a tough decision. This seems to be related to the image of Prokhorov, who played the role of a liberal whipping boy in the 2012 presidential elections and has remained a fan of Courchevel ever since.

Today, such characters have lost their political power, and along with it, state projects, state contracts and deposits; megastructures like Rostec have taken their place.

Rostec is all around

In addition to the development of the deposit itself, the Ak-Sug project also includes the construction of a mining and processing complex. Golevskaya GRK had a ready-made project, for which AO Giprotsvetmet was responsible. The ultimate beneficiary of this structure is Aleksandr Kantsurov, and one of the companies in the ownership scheme is OOO EPK, which previously belonged to Rostec.

"RT-Business Development" left the capital of OOO "EPC" only in November 2023, and Kantsurov himself plays in the amateur hockey league "Labor Reserves" for the team "Rostec". It is clear that this is not a coincidence.

Alexander Kantsurov. Photo: https://missiya.info/articles/tag/александр-кантуров

Thus, in Ak-Suga everything is geared towards Rostec, and the only question is who will be in charge of this deposit in the future. The state corporation itself or a third structure.

Tuning for Avdolyan

Read more:"The gold of the poor" and the interests of the banker Kostin

Rostec likes to intercept deposits and then sell them. In 2021, Chemezov’s state corporation bought 5% in the Elga coal complex from Albert Avdolyan, and sold them back in 2022. At the same time, the A-Property company received other Rostec assets.

The amount of the deal was hidden, as was how much state money went into the Elga coal complex during the presence of Rostec. Chemezov’s company apparently tuned the project and returned the asset to Avdolyan in better shape than a year before.

Albert Avdolyan. Photo: https://www.rbc.ru/business/28/07/2022/62e261aa9a7947aa564502b0

There is close cooperation between Rostec and Avdolyan’s companies on a variety of issues. Apparently, all this holding of the Elginskoye deposit shares, and then their return to Avdolyan with a "trailer" is a consequence of mutually beneficial cooperation between the businessman and Chemezov.

Chemezov heads the board of trustees of Avdolyan’s New House foundation, where their spouses also sit. The head of Rostec helped Avdolyan’s business develop - this is clearly evident from the story with the Yota Devices company and other projects of the entrepreneur, where the state corporation is somehow present.

Resale of gold

Rostec has been involved in deposits for a long time. A similar story happened with the country’s largest gold deposit, Kyuchus, in Yakutia. In 2022, the license for its development was received by Beloye Zoloto, a joint venture between Rostec and Seligdar of Konstantin Beyrit and Sergey Tatarinov.

Sergey Chemezov. Photo: https://rostec.ru/news/4521926/

Read more:Scheme for Elga: Avdolyan and his new financial ...ideas?

During the deal, Rostec did not even hide the fact that the project could be resold in the future. This is apparently what happened, 33% of Rostec shares in the joint venture SL Gold, apparently, went to Seligdar.

Rostec takes control of the deposit through a tender. The state corporation operates here through a joint venture with a partner, and then exits the capital. This resembles an established business of capturing and then selling strategic mining projects.

Is a concession to Sviblov planned?

In addition to gold, Ak-Sug plans to mine copper and molybdenum. In 2023, Rostec launched a similar project in Kabardino-Balkaria to develop the Tyrnauz tungsten-molybdenum deposit and the B.K. Mikhailov gold deposit. Elbrusmetall is responsible for developing the rocks there. The state corporation positions the enterprise as a joint venture, but the de facto counterparty here is one of Rostec’s subsidiaries.

Vladislav Sviblov. Photo: https://tgstat.ru/channel/@babr24/30211

The acquisition of this asset was presented in Rostec as a step towards building an economic complex from raw material extraction to the production of finished high-tech products. But first, the delivery of the Tyrnauz deposit was postponed, and then talk began about its sale. The possible buyer is said to be Highland Gold, which in 2020 passed from Roman Abramovich to Vladislav Sviblov.

And now Rostec is getting involved in exactly the same project in Tuva. Where is the logic? Or is all this really being done to obtain and then resell the deposits? It is noteworthy that Sviblov was able to buy out Highland Gold only thanks to a credit line from VTB, which is headed by Chemezov’s ally Andrei Kostin.

With VTB money

Chemezov and Kostin made the right choice with Sviblov. Sviblov’s business, inflated with VTB money, is under the full control of VTB and the Irish subsidiary of Kostin’s bank. Now there is information that Sviblov may flee abroad, but his mining assets will remain under the control of creditors in any case.

It is also important that Sviblov can receive direct funding from the federal budget. On the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum, representatives of Highland Gold signed an agreement with the Far East Development Corporation to develop the Kun-Manye polymetallic deposit in the Amur Region. Sviblov acquired this project, similar to Ak-Sug, from Amur Minerals in 2023. He clearly came to mining with big plans for the development of state funds.

Andrey Kostin. Photo: https://tribuna.news/news/2024/2/24/-3

Why Sviblov is not a partner for Rostec and VTB - over-indebted, with weak positions, who can give away or return assets at any moment. Such a character is the best temporary holder of companies, production facilities or deposits.

By the way, Tyva will not get rid of Rostec with just Ak-Sug. In 2023, Elbrusmetall’s subsidiary Elbrusmetall-lithium was issued a license for the  Tastygskoye lithium deposit . For now, this business remains the property of Rostec, but rumors about the possible sale of assets have also appeared on the market.

So, the fate of Ak-Sug is predetermined? Rostec will most likely create a joint company - the best candidate for a partner is one of the Sviblov-Avdolyan pair, and then gradually transfer its share to one of them. It is not necessary for the state corporation to own the deposits to obtain raw materials. All these takeovers of the fields seem to be independent commercial projects of the Chemezov group.