The Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complex has completed the reconstruction and expansion project of the Kalmakyr mine worth USD 122.2 million.
The AMMC launched a project for the reconstruction of the Kalmakyr mine in 2010. The project envisaged construction of a fourth reloading link and reconstruction of railway tracks at the mine as well as the purchase of additional mining and transport equipment.
According to the agency's interlocutor, as a result of the project's completion ore production increased four million tons per year. The project was financed by a loan from the Uzbek Fund for Reconstruction and Development to the amount of USD 63 million and from local commercial banks and AMMC equity.
Kalmakyr mine is located at the base of a porphyry copper deposit of the same name which has been developed since 1954. Its capacity is 27 million tonnes of ore a year. Apart from copper, there are also gold, silver, molybdenum, selenium, tellurium and rhenium found at the deposit.
The transport process is carried out in a combined way. The ore is delivered to the processing plant in railroad dump cars to a distance of 8 kilometers. The overburden is transported by rail to dumps. More than 20 excavators and 20 drilling rigs are involved in the loading of rock mass at the mine.
About 90% of silver and 20% of gold production in the country falls to the share of AMMC. The plant consists of two mining companies, two processing plants and two metallurgical plants.
Copper porphyry ore fields at Kalmakyr and Sary Checku and the lead and zinc barite ore deposit at Uch Kulach in the Djizzak region is the resource base of AMMC. The total volume of production is estimated at more than USD 300 million a year. The complex exports about 60% of the output.
