Ado Mining to put $4.5 mln into new barite concentrate factory in Georgia
TBILISI. Aug 22 (Interfax) - JSC Ado Georgia Mining, which was set up in Georgia by Turkey's Ado Mining, and which last year acquired at auction a thirty-year license to mine barite at he Chordi deposit in northern Georgia, plans to build a beneficiation plant for the production of barite concentrate with capacity of up to 60,000 tonnes per year.
Founder of Ado Georgia Mining on the Georgian side Georgy Tabatadze told Interfax the plant is to be built in the town of Chordi, near to the deposit.
"The investment cost of the project is $4.5 million. The enterprise is calculated to produce up to five thousand tonnes of barite concentrate per month," Tabatadze said. A feasibility study has already been done and an evaluation of the enterprise's impact on the environment has been concluded and is now out for public discussion.
"It is expected that the enterprise's construction will begin in November, and its commissioning is planned for before the end of 2014," Tabatadze said.
The Chordi deposit covers 205 hectares and contains as much as two million tonnes of barite ore.
Ado Mining is part of the Turkish Ado Group, which was created in 1994 and now includes companies engaged in mining, energy, construction, transportation, and also in the production of plastic mass and products made from it. Ado Mining is Turkey's biggest producer and exporter of barite ore, which is using mainly in oil and gas industry drilling operations. Its production capacity is 240,000 tonnes of barite per year, of which 130,000 to 150,000 tonnes is exported.
