KHUJAND, October 27, 2008, Asia-Plus — The ongoing world financial crisis is a severe test for open joint-stock company (OJSC), Adrasman Ore Refinery, and therefore, we are currently working on taking preventive measures, Nurlan Alimbetov, chairman of the board of joint-stock company (JSC), Konimansour, which is owner of the ore refinery, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, the financial crisis has led to a great drop in prices of oil and metals, including the non-ferrous ones.
“The crisis is a severe test for mining companies and the Adrasman ore refinery, which produces lead and silver concentrate, is also expected to have uneasy time with production of output,” Alimbetov said, noting that the lead prices dropped by more than 200 percent and the silver prices dropped from US$17.3 to US$9.3 per troy ounce.
We will recall that speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus in early October, Alimbetov said that investments in the ore refinery would reach 4.25 million US dollars in the near future. According to him, work on the ore refinery is progressing and US$1.65 million have been remitted to the enterprise so far. The ore refinery is expected to ship the first product this month already. By the end of this year, the Adrasman ore refinery should ship some 1000 tons of concentrate.
Established in 1967, the Adrasman ore refinery is engaged in mining and processing of lead ore for producing led-silver concentrate. The plant’s rated capacity is more than 650,000 tons of ore a year. The ore refinery was purchased by Kazakhstan’s KazInvest-Mineral in July 2006 for 11 million somoni.
Under an agreement concluded between KazInvest-Mineral, which assumed the 100 percent ownership interest in the or refinery, and Kazakh company North Time this year, 74 percent of shares in the ore refinery were transferred to North Time.
