Gold and Silver Mining to Start in Oymyakonsky District, Yakutia

The OKTO Gold group has announced a tender for the development of the Khangalas gold deposit in the Oymyakonsky District of Yakutia. A potential contractor must prepare basic technical solutions for three options within 3.5 months. Underground work is planned to begin in October this year. This was reported on 4 February by the website Nedra DV.

The deposit is located 150 kilometres from the village of Ust-Nera, not far from the federal highway Kolyma. The nearest settlement is the village of Artyk. In September 2019, the enterprise launched a gravity-concentrating mill with a capacity of 165,000 tonnes per year, which was not operating for a long time; technical re-equipment is currently underway.

The OKTO Gold group is a young company founded in early 2024 and registered in Moscow. The General Director is Alexei Tolokonnikov. The company has over 10 subsidiaries, including OKTO-Yakutia JSC, established in 2025 specifically for managing and consolidating assets in Yakutia. The development of the Khangalas deposit will be handled by OKTO Gold — Khangalas JSC (formerly GRK Dvoinoi-Duk JSC).

In 2024, OKTO Gold planned to extract 906,300 tonnes of ore from the Khangalas deposit over six years, including 2.24 tonnes of gold from the West Quarry and 0.35 tonnes of gold from the East Quarry through open-pit mining. In 2026, OKTO Gold plans to launch the ore hub and achieve gold production of about one tonne, later increasing to up to two tonnes.

The Khangalas deposit contains 8.64 tonnes of gold and 13.5 tonnes of silver, including 2.59 tonnes of gold and 500 kilograms of silver amenable to open-pit mining.

In Yakutia, OKTO Gold also owns the Badran underground mine, also in the Oymyakonsky District, which the company acquired in April 2025. Annual production there is 1,100 kilograms of gold. The enterprise employs about 600 people.