A fourth regrind mill made by Metso Outotec (one of six mills in total including four regrind along with two SAG mills) has been installed in the grinding department building at the construction site of Udokan Copper. As a result, all mills in the processing plant are assembled and ready for the installation of attachments and auxiliary equipment, electric motors, electric power supply systems, as well as monitoring and control units.

After the primary crushing of ore mined at the Zapadny open pit, fractions less than 300 mm in size will be fed to the milling circuit via belt conveyors. The six mills installed in the building will mill the ore to a particle size of less than 170 microns for subsequent transfer to the flotation line. Two SAG mills and four regrind ball mills will be used at the first stage of the Udokan project providing a processing capacity of 12 Mt/y.

Udokan Copper LLC (formerly Baikal Mining Company) was established to implement the project for the development of the Udokan copper deposit. The company is a part of the USM diversified group of companies (founded by AB Usmanov). Udokan is the largest undeveloped copper deposit in Russia and the third largest in the world. The resources of the deposit in accordance with the JORC classification are 26.7 Mt of copper, with the copper grade in the ore (in accordance with the JORC classification) being 1.0%. The deposit is located in the Kalarsky district of the Trans-Baikal Territory, 30 km from Novaya Chara station of the Baikal-Amur Mainline.