Russia's ZUMK to build gold mine for Uzbekistan's Almalyk Mining
TASHKENT. June 20 (Interfax) - Russia's Western Ural Engineering Concern group (ZUMK) will build an underground gold mine at the Kyzylalma deposit in Uzbekistan, which is being developed by the Almalyk Mining & Metallurgical Works.
ZUMK won a tender to build the vertical shaft of the mine, a source in the management of Almalyk told Interfax.
The contract has been signed, but the price has not been disclosed. The starting price of the tender was $18.9 million.
Almalyk began building an underground mine at the Samarchuk section of the Kyzylalma deposit at the end of 2012. The design capacity of the mine is 200,000 tonnes of ore per year, and the overall cost of the project is $74 million. It will be financed with $35 million of the company's own funds, $14.15 million from the Reconstruction and Development Fund and loans from local banks.
Almalyk is one of the largest producers of nonferrous metals in Central Asia and Uzbekistan's only copper producer. The company produces about 90% of the country's silver and 20% of its gold. The company includes eight mining enterprises, four enrichment plants and two metallurgical plants with their own infrastructure. Its resource base includes the porphyry copper deposits of Kalmakyr and Sary-Cheku in the Tashkent region, and the Uch-Kulach lead, zinc and barite deposit in the Jizzakh region.
The ZUMK group, according to its website, has two main lines of business: production of mining, hoisting, transport and oilfield equipment, pipeline valves, crane equipment and clam buckets (production units Uralgorneftemash, Krasnokamsk Machine Building Plant, Mashzavod Yugokama and LitMashPro-M); and engineering (ZUMK-Engineering, Trest-UralShakhtoStroy and Shakhtspetsproyekt). The group also includes service, trade and finance companies.
The group also said that in Uzbekistan it is currently building the second phase of the Dekhkanabad potash fertilizer plant with an estimated cost of $122.3 million; designing and building a cableway at the Dekhkanabad plant ($43 million); restoring three mine shafts at Navoi Mining and Metals Works' Zarmitan mine ($18.7 million); preparing a feasibility study for expanding production at coal company Shargunugol ($65 million); as well as updating equipment at the Angren coal mine, surveying the Tyubegatan potash deposit and working on a feasibility study for the construction of a mining and enrichment complex.