Siberian Research Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineral Raw Materials, Novosibirsk, Russia

L. I. Shabalin, Senior Researcher, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, shabalinli@rambler.ru

The article discusses possibility of supplying the Russian industry with deficient minerals. The list of deficient minerals, approved by the Government of Russia, among other things, includes titanium, manganese and aluminum, which are imported from abroad on a large scale although Russia has huge resources of these materials. However, they occur at nonstandard deposits in our country. For instance, aluminum ore is produced from nepheline syenites which are processed like that nowhere in the world. Manganese ore represents carboniferous varieties which are also nowhere mined. Titanium ore concentrates mostly in placers, and ledge ore—in titanium-bearing gabbro massifs which start to be developed only at a small scale. The aim and procedure of this research consist in the review of the existing resources at the deposits of the deficient raw materials in the south of Western Siberia, and in selecting the most promising deposits and their development methods. The author shows that one of the most promising deposits for the preferable development to solve some of the problems being highlighted is the Kharlov titanium–magnetite deposit in the Altai Krai. The deposit holds billions of tons of mineral resources, contains such metallic minerals as free ilmenite, vanadium-bearing titanomagnetite and high-aluminous plagioclase, and represents an integrated iron–titanium–vanadium–aluminum source. Utilization of these minerals is possible through blending their enrichment concentrates with ore concentrates from other deposits, to attribute certain handing abilities to the blend to promote its complete and profitable use. In particular, it is proposed to blend titanomagnetite concentrates with ilmenite concentrates from placers, for application in electrometallurgy, and blend plagioclase concentrates with nepheline ore to be processed for the production of alumina.

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