The 21th Century balance wheel: Organization of the Largest Metallurgical Production Based on Ores of the Chiney and Malotagul Deposits

The concept of the «New Angarstroy» project is presented. Its key part is the creation of the Russia-wide metallurgical production cycle, including high-quality ferrous metallurgy and titanium-magnesium industry on the basis of vanadium-containing titanomagnetite ores of the BAM zone and Irkutsk region, as well as on the basis of gas (the Kovykta field), coal (the Irkutsk basin) and hydropower (Angarа hydropower stations). Trains loaded with ore at first and later with metal products will go from the Novaya Chara station to Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, and Chita, and bring back capital goods, which will ensure functioning of this «balance wheel» similar the 1930-1940 Ural-Kuzbass balance wheel. Such strategic deposits as the Malotagul and Chiney should not be developed by private companies. Their development should be entrusted to a purely state-owned Russia-wide company which is currently the Russian Railways. The project «New Angarstroy» can be implemented for defense, export purposes, in the context of the non-resource cooperation with China and other countries, as well as within large-scale reconstruction programs of the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur railways and the entire national railway system. It is designed to dispel the myth that future economic prosperity of the region is predetermined by further merciless exploitation of its forest resources, development of environment-damaging chemical industries and tourist hotels at Baikal.