Uzbekistan, Tashkent, November 24 / Trend D. Azizov /
The Uzbek President has approved the schedule to start construction and source finance for two gold mines in the Tashkent region worth $126.5 million, a government source told Trend.
According to the schedule, the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (AMMC) must complete constructing an underground mine at the Samarchuk site on the Kyzyl Olma field for up to 200,000 tons of ore per year by late 2015. Until the end of 2014, input will be more restricted.
The conglomerate will construct a new underground mine, Kayragach, with a capacity of 80,000 tons of ore per year by late 2014. The cost of the first project is $78.1 million and with the construction of the Kayragach mine stands at $48.4 million.
The projects will be financed by the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical combine's own funds of which $31.5 million are loans from the Fund for Reconstruction and Development totalling $ 50 million and the Uzbek banks' funds - $45 million.
The Almalyk ore mining enterprise is the only copper producer in Uzbekistan and one of the biggest nonferrous metals producers in Central Asia. The enterprise covers around 90 per cent of silver production and 20 per cent of gold production in Uzbekistan. It consists of two ore mining facilities, two processing plants and two metallurgic factories with their own infrastructure.
The enterprise is authorised to develop copper-molybdenum and lead-zinc ore mines in the area of Almalyk in the Tashkent region. The enterprise's raw materials base comprises copper-porphyritic ore mines Kalmakyr and Sary-Cheku (the Tashkent region) and lead-zinc-barite ore mine Uch-Kulach (the Jizak region).
Production is valued at a total of more than $300 million per year.