Abstract
<jats:p>An economic assessment of mineral deposits of the unallocated subsoil reserve fund of the eastern and southern economic zones of Tuva was carried out using the discounted cash flow method, which showed that ore gold deposits remain the most attractive assets from the investor’s point of view. At the same time, the assessment shows a low potential for the development of the Bayan-Kola deposit of nepheline ores and the Ulug-Tanzek tantalum-niobium deposit. This is due to the remoteness of these mineral deposits from the transport and energy infrastructure of the region. In order to increase the investment attractiveness, we have proposed the public-private partnership (PPP) tool, in which the taxes on the operating costs, e.g. the mineral extraction tax, social contributions, etc., are excluded for projects with low profitability for the first three years of the company's operation. The performed assessment shows that in this case the profitability for the Ulug-Tanzek tantalumniobium deposit increases significantly, i.e. the NPV increases to 14.9 billion rubles, while the IRR goes up to 15%. However, application of the same scenario for the Bayan-Kola deposit is insufficient for its development. Therefore, gold ore deposits have significant investment attractiveness, and deposits of non-ferrous, rare and rare earth metals are not characterized with such a high profitability, which is associated with high capital intensity of the mining projects, the lack of energy and transport infrastructure, which generally increase the financial risks of the project implementation. In order to increase the investment attractiveness of the mineral deposits in hard-to-reach areas, we propose the PPP tool in the form of a temporary tax exemption (from 3 to 5 years).</jats:p>