Uzbekistan, Tashkent, April 3 / Trend D.Azizov /
British-Australian Rio Tinto Mining & Exploration Ltd. (Rio Tinto) has started geological exploration for copper at the Gava prospective area (Namangan region, east of Uzbekistan), a source in the government circles of the country told Trend on Wednesday.
The work commenced in accordance with the program of work on geological exploration developed jointly with the State Committee for Geology and Mineral Resources (Goskomgeo) of Uzbekistan and designed for 2013, the source said.
He recalled that in December last year, Goskomgeo issued a license to Rio Tinto for geological survey of the Gava area in the Namangan region, promising to reveal copper deposits. The license is granted for five years. Search operations will be conducted under the terms of business risk.
Implementation of the project was approved by the decree of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
General Director of Rio Tinto in the Central Asian region Chris Welton said earlier that in the case of positive results, the company may invest up to $ 100 million in geological exploration for copper in Uzbekistan.
According to the source, GAVA EXPLORATION LLC (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto) was established to work in Uzbekistan as an operating company.
Rio Tinto is also exploring the possibility of implementing other projects in the mining industry of Uzbekistan.
Currently, there are 900 discovered ore occurrences and deposits of copper in Uzbekistan. However, only three of them, concentrated in the Almalyk area, are being exploited.
The Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (AMMC), the only copper producer in the country, is developing copper-porphyry ores Kalmakyr, Dalneye and Sary Ceku with total reserves of about 17 million tons of copper.