DUSHANBE, December 15, Asia-Plus — A groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the Altyn-Topkan ore refinery is being held in Sughd’s Mastchoh district today.
High-raking Tajik state officials and representatives from China’s company China Global New Technology Export & Import, which funds the construction, will be attending the ceremony.
Isojon Qurbonov, the head of the mining department of the Ministry of Energy and Industries (MoEI), told Asia-Plus that the Chinese company, which had bought the Altyn-Topkan mine, intended to invest totaling $30 million in rehabilitation of the mine and construction of the plant that would produce lead-zinc concentrate.
“The initial capacity of the plant is expected to be 250,000 tons of ore per year, with further increase in annual production up to 500,000-700,000 and even 1 million tons,” the MoEI official said, adding that the ore refinery is expected to be finished in 14 months.
We will recall that the Altyn-Topkan mine was sold to subsidiary of China Global New Technology Export & Import in Tajikistan for 7,695,200 somonis (equivalent to some $2.23 million) by auction in November last year. The same time, the company received licenses from the Tajik government to explore Poybuloq and Altyn-Topkan deposits.
The MoEI said that in the Soviet era, ore from the Altyn-Topkan zinc and lead mine had been sent for processing to Uzbekistan. The mine, which located on Tajik territory, had been jointly worked with Uzbekistan since before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The two countries had begun negotiations in 1996 on Tajikistan”s assuming full responsibility for the mine.
