East Engineering

History

2025: Rosneft bought East Engineering

Rosneft acquired 100% of Vostok Engineering LLC, which owns a license for the use of the subsoil of the Burannaya site of the Tomtorsky rare earth metal deposit in Yakutia. Corresponding changes to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities were made on May 20, 2025.

According to Kommersant, the company was previously owned by TriArk Mining LLC, the beneficiary of which is the manager of the IST group Vladislav Resin. The Tomtorskoye deposit is one of the largest in the world in terms of reserves of rare earth metals.

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Фото: Freepik

The forecast resources of the deposit are estimated at 154 million tons of ore with a high content of niobium, terbium, yttrium and scandium oxides. TriArk Mining won an auction for the right to use the subsoil plot in 2014 as a joint venture of the IST Group and Rostec.

In 2019, Rostec withdrew from the project. In 2021, Polymetal announced the purchase of 9.1% of TriArk Mining for $20 million, leaving the asset in the summer of 2024. The primary estimate of the Burannaya site reserves is 11.4 million tonnes of ore containing 0.7 million tonnes of niobium oxide and 1.7 million tonnes of rare earth oxides.

It was planned to start mining in 2022, and by 2024 to build a plant with a capacity of up to 160 thousand tons of ore per year, but the implementation of the project slowed down. Sources of the publication spoke about Rosneft's interest in Tomtor in November 2024.

The head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, in a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, proposed transferring the Zvezda shipbuilding complex to the United Shipbuilding Corporation "at the cost of construction," and directing the funds to the development of Tomtor. The cost of building Zvezda and related capacities was estimated at ₽250 billion.

The deal did not materialize. In March 2025, the head of VTB Andrei Kostin stated that the corporation does not have "free resources" and it was decided that "it is better to develop ourselves." Dissatisfaction with the Tomtor development project was expressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian President noted at the end of November 2024 at a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov that the business structures that took the deposits many years ago do not invest. Vladimir Putin emphasized that this is a strategically important resource that the state needs.^[1]

Notes