Minister asks to draft proposals on prospecting gold in Kurile

VLADIVOSTOK, May 15 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's Natural Resource Minister
Yuri Trutnev, who is visiting the Southern Kurile Islands with a group of
high-rank government officials led by Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov,
"has issued an instruction to the territorial agency for the utilization
of natural resources /Sakhalinnedra/ to draft proposals on budget-funded
geological exploration of the mineral resources, the development of which
facilitate the progress of economy of the islands."
"The case in hand is gold and rhenium, in part," the Sakhalin regional
administration said in a press release.
Rhenium is a rare, silvery-white, dense metal with high resistance to
corrosion and oxidation. It is one of the five major refractory metals,
that is, the metals with very high resistance to heat and wear.
Rhenium is used with platinum as catalysts in the production of
lead-free high-octane gasoline. It is also used in alloys for get engines
and in the alloys where tungsten and molybdenum form the basis.
Last but not least, rhenium is used as an electrical contact material.
The worldwide reserves of the metal are assessed at around 13,000 tons.
In Russia, the metal is found only at a deposit on the Kudryavy
volcano on the Southern Kurile island of Iturup. It was discovered there
in 1992.
May 14, Yuri Trutnev held a conference on the issues of mineral
resource utilization in the Sakhalin region. It was attended by the
regional ministers of natural resources and nature conservation, heads of
regional affiliations of federal agencies of power, and executives of oil
and gas companies.
The delegation led by Sergei Ivanov is making a tour of the Sakhalin
region primarily for the purpose of social and economic development of the
Kurile Islands.