Irkutsk Oblast - Economy

Economy

Irkutsk Oblast is a major industrial area whose production is very important for the economy of Eastern Siberia; certain sectors are of great importance to the Russian economy. In the level of industrial and natural resource development and specialization and concentration of production, Irkutsk Region has surpassed many other regions of Siberia and the Far East. It plays an important role in the national economy as a producer of power, aluminum, various kinds of power and heating equipment, chemicals and petrochemicals, wood products, and engineering products.

Irkutsk Oblast is one of a number of unique natural areas in Russia in terms of mineral reserves. The most important mineral resources are hydrocarbons, gold, mica, iron, brown and hard coal, and table salt. There are also abundant subsurface deposits of nonmetallic raw materials for ferrous metallurgy. Coal reserves within the region include those of the Irkutsk basin, the extreme eastern part of the Kansk-Achinsk basin, and the southern part of the Tunguska basin. Most of these reserves are concentrated in Cheremkhovsky, Zalarinsky, Kuitunsky, and Tulunsky districts.

The region is one of the country's leaders in development-ready reserves and probable reserves of rare metals, especially niobium, tantalum, lithium, and rubidium. The Beloziminskoe and Vishnyakovskoe deposits of the Sayanskaya rare metal province are notable for their large probable reserves of metals like lithium, cesium, magnesium, and strontium, as well as other elements like bromine and potassium, contained in the highly mineralized brines of the Angaro-Lensky salt basin. The basin has no equal among subsurface platform water resources in the country.