List of terms and abbreviations

Balance mineral resources – The volume of material that indicates the presence of metal at a sufficient probability level, the economic value of which is confirmed by the State Committee of Reserves

Biooxidation – Oxidation of sulfide minerals exposed to bacteria with metal extraction through desalination

Cut-off grade – The minimally acceptable sample value that can be used to determine the economic value of a mineral; unit cut-off grade- unit value that optimizes net value generated by developing property

Cyanidation (cyanide desalination) – A method of extracting uncovered gold or silver from crushed or milled ore by dissolving it in a weak cyanide mixture; may be performed using crushed ore in containers or in piles in the open air.

Doré, Doré alloy – Unrefined gold; a commercial end product of a gold extraction factory (mill), which is produced by alloying the products of the previous ore enrichment processes

Flotation – Process of physical segregation, during which minerals attach to bubbles and resurface as other minerals sink.

State Reserves Commission (State Reserves Commission of the Federal Agency for Subsoil Usage) – State commission for mineral reserves; set up in 1927, the SRC controls the usage of mineral resources on behalf of the RF Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.

JORC Code – Australasian reporting code for mineral resources and ore reserves, developed by the Joint committee on ore reserves of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Australian Institute of Geological Sciences and the Mineral Council of Australia; the currently valid code dates to 2004.

Mineral resources – The Russian equivalent of the Western notion of mineral resources and ore reserves; mineral resources are subdivided into the categories A, B, and C1, depending on the extent of their certainty and degree of technological exploration.

Mineral resources (the JORC Code) – Defines mineral resources as the concentration or deposit of minerals, in or on the Earth’s crust, that is sufficiently economically attractive to justify their extraction; they are subdivided into the categories of “Assessed”, “Uncovered” or “Possible”, depending on their degree of exploration.

Off-balance mineral reserves – Material volume which manifests metal availability to a sufficient extent of certainty, but whose economic extraction profitability has not been proved

Open pit – Open surface excavation; among these are open-cast coal mines and open pits

Ore body – Mineralized body, which is either profitably exploited, or which manifests reasonable certainty of profitable exploitation

Ore field (резервы) – Total number of mines used to exploit a general mineral deposit or a group of closely interconnected ore bodies (diggings)

Ore resources (reserves) – The JORC Code defines ore reserves as the part of measured or indicated mineral reserves that may be mined on an economically profitable basis; ore reserves are subject to respective studies, such as a feasibility study using real mining-technological, metallurgical, economic, market-related, legal, environmental, social and administrative factors; these studies suggest that excavation may be reasonably justified at the moment of developing reporting documentation.

Oxidated ore – Ore exposed to the process of natural oxidation.

Ore stock pile – Excavated ore stored at the surface, which is to be processed or delivered.

Sulphide ore – Ore in its primarily mineralized state, which has not been exposed to natural oxidation