KHUJAND, February 9, 2010, Asia-Plus — Uzbekistan has cut off electricity supplies to the industrial settlement Zarnisor (formerly Altyn Topkan) in the Tajik northern Sughd province and Tajik-Chinese joint mining venture, The Tajik-Chinese Mining Company, which is deployed in the settlement, for unknown reasons, Sodiq Rustamov, head of the energy and industries department within the Sughd regional administration, told Asia-Plus today.
“The settlement has not had electricity for already three days,” said Rustamov, “Tajik power engineering specialists are currently extending a high-voltage cable to the settlement to supply Tajik electricity to the residents and the Tajik-Chinese JV.” This work will take several days, he added.
Rustamov noted that concentrating mill of the Tajik-Chinese Mining Company with rated capacity of processing up to one million tons of ore per year had already been prepared for introduction into operation. The plant will produce lead and zinc concentrates.
“The plant was supposed to be introduced into operation in November 2009 but the launch was postponed because of mistakes made in designing a tailing dump,” said Rustamov, “They began to construct a new larger tailing dump and this work will take one more month.”
According to him, some 500 people, with 70 percent of them being Tajik nationals, now work for the Tajik-Chinese Mining Company.
