BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 13. KATCO, the joint venture of France's Orano Mining (51 percent) and Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom (49 percent), plans to start exploitation of Kazakhstan's South Tortkuduk uranium plot by the end of 2023, Gwénaël Thomas, press office manager of the company, told Trend.
According to him, the agreement on this is reflected in the amendment made to the existing subsoil utilization contract in August 2022. The exploitation of this new plot should guarantee KATCO production for around fifteen years.
Furthermore, the press office manager also touched on the other agreements reached between Kazakhstan and Orano.
"In November 2022, Orano and Kazatomprom signed a memorandum of cooperation as part of the visit of President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to France. Through this memorandum, Orano and Kazatomprom state their intention to maintain and strengthen their cooperation in the uranium mining industry, building on their existing successful partnership," he said.
He added that among the joint cooperation initiatives, the memorandum provides for the implementation of a joint technical R&D roadmap, and investigations on the ways to address carbon emissions from operations, and sets the ground for discussions on the long-term development of the partnership between the two companies.
KATCO was founded in 1996 to develop and exploit the uranium deposits of Muyunkum and Tortkuduk in the Turkestan region, around 300 kilometers north of Shymkent.
Today, the company employs around 1,200 people and operates an ISR (In-Situ Recovery) mine with an annual capacity of around 4,000 tons of uranium. The exploitation of the two deposits has allowed KATCO to produce more than 40,000 tons of uranium over the last 20 years.