Tashkent, Uzbekistan, April 20
By Demir Azizov- Trend:
Uzbekistan's Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (AMMC, Almalyk city, Tashkent region) - a monopoly producer of copper in the republic - has started prospect and exploratory works at Kuldara area of copper-zinc mineralization in Kashkadarya region (south of Uzbekistan).
The plant will conduct geological and prospect and exploratory works on this area in order to expand resource base of mining and processing complex, operating Khandiza field until mid-2016, the combine's representative told Trend.
As reported earlier, mining and processing complex worth $ 147 million was commissioned in early 2011. The design capacity of the complex is 650000 tons of ore per year. Production capacity of the copper enrichment plant designed to produce 5000 tons of copper concentrate, 20,000 tonnes of lead concentrate and 60,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate annually.
The combine also plans to start developing a new copper mine Dalnee in the Tashkent region By the end of the year which is considered as a reserve to replace commissioned capacities of "Kalmakyr" and "Sarah-Ceku" mines.
It is planned to reach the level of 35 million tonnes of ore annually within the project scheduled for 2021.
In the spring of 2013 the British-Australian company "Rio Tinto" started exploration of copper deposits in the prospective "Hava" area in Namangan in eastern Uzbekistan under a license issued by the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Geology and Mineral Resources for period of five years. An operating company - "Gava Exploration" LLC (a wholly-owned "daughter" of Rio Tinto) was created for activity in Uzbekistan.. Predicted resources of the licensed area are not disclosed.
At present, there are about 900 Uzbekistan ore occurance and copper deposits, but only three fields of them are commissioned, which concentrated in Almalyk Tashkent region.
In particular, AMMC - only copper producer in the country - is developing deposits of copper-porphyry "Kalmakyr" and "Sarah-Ceku" with total reserves of about 17 million tonnes of copper, about 20 percent.of which has been extracted so far.
Almalyk MMC is the only copper producer in Uzbekistan and one of the largest producers of nonferrous metals in the Central Asian region. The share of AMMC accounts for about 90 per cent of silver production and 20 per cent of gold in the country. The plant composition consists of two mining companies, two processing plants and two metallurgical plants with their own infrastructure.
The plant has the rights to develop copper-molybdenum and lead-zinc ores in the vicinity of Almalyk (Tashkent region). The raw material source of AMMC is copper-porphyry ores of Kalmakyr and Sarah-Ceku (Tashkent region) and the deposit of lead-zinc-barite ore of Uch-kulaks (Djizzak).
Production specialises in the production of refined copper (cathodes), metallic zinc and lead concentrate.
Translated by S.I.
Edited by C.N.