Friday, May 25 2018 16:11

ArmInfo. The Ministry of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia is studying the situation at the Sotskoye field. The newly appointed Minister of  Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources Artur Grigoryan  announced this on May 25 in a conversation with journalists.

According to him, a signal about the events taking place in the  company GeoProMining Gold was received the day before. Employees of  the department are currently studying the situation on ground. "So  far, there has not been reported about it (the situation - ed)," said  Artur Grigoryan.

The day before, GeoProMining Gold, which is developing the Sotq  deposit in Armenia and owning the Ararat gold recovery plant, as well  as the Agarak Copper Molybdenum Combine, reported the production stop  at Sotq. As the press service of the company explained, the reason  for that was the actions of a group of third parties. In particular,  on May 17-18, and also from May 22 to the present, a group of people  consisting of local criminal elements, motivating their actions with  political and nationalist slogans, blocked the entry and exit from  the Sotq quarry and access of equipment to the station of fuels and  lubricants. Protesters also blocked the road leading to the  Sotq-Ararat railway line, through which the daily transportation of  ore from the Sotq deposit to the Ararat factory is carried out. The  stoppage of production at the field resulted in a simple Sotq-Ararat  railway line operated by South Caucasus Railways (SCR, a subsidiary  of RR in Armenia) and providing about half of its revenues. In these  conditions, GeoProMining Gold is forced to stop production, incl. and  at the Ararat gold recovery plant.

According to the source, people engaged in sabotage of production at  the mine face various ultimatum nationalist demands and subject the  company's management and employees to threats and blackmail. But the  real motivation of the protesters lies in the requirement to the  management of GeoProMining Gold to allow access to the mine's  territory for illegal illegal gold mining organized by the criminal  community.

The Company's repeated appeals to the RA Police Department with a  request to resolve the situation with illegal obstruction of the  Company's normal operation had no results. The police motivates their  inaction by the fact that the shares are of a peaceful nature and law  enforcement bodies are not entitled to do anything in this situation.  The real result of blackmail of criminal elements in the event of  government inaction is the stopping of enterprises, the loss of wages  by the workers, and the state's taxes on profits, extraction of  minerals, social deductions to budgets of all levels of the RA,  deterioration of the investment climate in the country.

"We consider it necessary to recall that in 2007 the Group of  GeoPromining acquired this production complex in a deplorable state  with debts to the state and labor collective.In 10 years of work in  Armenia, the Company invested in the modernization and development of  the enterprise more than $ 505 million, becoming one of the largest  Russian investors in the economy of Armenia As a result, to date, the  workforce of the Company has more than 2,000 people, and taxes paid  to the budget of Armenia exceed $ 200 million. Only in 2017,  GeoProMining paid out About $ 27 million to the state budget and  ranked among the top five taxpayers of the country GeoProMining  expresses concern over the threat to the physical safety of its  employees and calls on the Government of Armenia and power structures  to stand up for the interests of the state and foreign investors  fulfilling their financial obligations to the RA and ensuring  implementation social programs on the ground.The company counts on  the assistance of the state and the organization of urgent measures  to ensure conditions for unhindered and uninterrupted the work of  industrial enterprises of the Group to Armenia," said in a statement.