KazakhGold Group Ltd
17 July 2007
JULY 17, 2007
KAZAKHGOLD AWARDS CONTRACT FOR NEW
TAILINGS RE-TREATMENT PLANTS
AT BESTOBE AND ZHOLYMBET
• Maed Awarded Design And Construction Contract For 2mtpa Units
• Will Form Nucleus Of Planned 4mtpa Hard Rock CIP Plants At Each Mine
• Buildings To Be Fast-Tracked To Allow Construction Through Winter Months
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KazakhGold Group Limited (LSE: KZG) is pleased to announce that Maed, the
international engineering, construction and consultancy group that has a
comprehensive global design and construction experience of mineral processing
plants, has been awarded the contract to design and construct new tailings
re-treatment plants at the Bestobe and Zholymbet gold mines in northern
Kazakhstan. Maed are recognised as being leaders in the mineral processing field
who have undertaken numerous projects, including tailings retreatment plants, on
three Continents.
These new facilities, together with a similar new plant planned for the Aksu
mine at a later date, form a fundamental part of KazakhGold's Accelerated
Investment Plan significantly to increase the long-term production target of the
Group. All three plants will have identical configuration, each being capable of
treating 2m tonnes/year (mtpa) of reclaimed tailings.
Each plant will consist of two sections at separate locations - the tailings dam
and processing plant sites. The tailings dam section will consist of a
re-mining plant where the re-claimed tailings material can be screened,
re-pulped for transport to the main treatment plant. This will comprise
milling, classification and thickening sections, followed by a leach/CIP
circuit. The leaching section will utilise oxygen shear technology
(accelerating the kinetics of the gold dissolution reaction) to pre-condition
the pulp prior to cyanide addition, and adsorption of the gold will be based on
carbon-in-pulp technology.
In the recently published annual report, KazakhGold confirmed that the
Accelerated Investment Plan will increase the proportion of ore treated by the
more efficient carbon-in-pulp (CIP) process. New 4mtpa CIP plants will be
constructed at each of the three main mines to process oxide ore. The main
treatment sections of the tailings re-treatment plants will be designed so that,
with the addition of further equipment, they will form the nucleus of the new
4mtpa oxide ore treatment plants at each mine.
The new tailings re-treatment plants at Bestobe and Zholymbet are expected to be
commissioned in the third quarter of 2008, and each is designed to recover
90,000oz/year of gold. The Bestobe plant will operate on tailings until
mid-2010 when it is scheduled to switch to treating oxide ore. Conversion to
oxide ore will take place approximately one year later at the Zholymbet plant.
The immediate objective of the contracts now awarded to Maed is to fast-track
building construction so that the shells are completed before the onset of
winter. This will allow construction and the installation of equipment to
continue inside these buildings throughout the winter period.
Commenting today, KazakhGold Executive Chairman, Dr Kanat Assaubayev, said: 'We
are very pleased to award these contracts to Maed who have an established
presence on site, and have been advising our technical team on the planned new
CIP plants since last year. The re-treatment of tailings will boost gold
production, and when these plants convert to treatment of oxide ore in 2-3
years' time it will greatly increase the Group's treatment capacity, improve
overall gold recovery and this should result in significantly lower operating
costs.'
Further information:
Aidar Assaubayev
Executive Vice Chairman
KazakhGold Group Limited
Tel: +7 327 250 9264
Sanzhar Assaubayev
General Manager, London Office
KazakhGold Group Limited
Tel: +7 777 723 8888
Ron Marshman/John Greenhalgh
City of London PR Limited
Tel: +44 (0)20 7628 5518
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange