KHUJAND, March 10, 2009, Asia-Plus — After being closed for three months, open joint-stock company (OJSC), the Adrasman Ore Refinery, has resumed operation.
The ore refinery was suspended on December 1, 2008 because of the fall in the international price of its product that had resulted from the global financial crisis.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the ore refinery director general Barot Karimov said the enterprise’s mines were reopened on March 1 and its concentrating mill resumed operation on March 7.
According to him, shareholders have invested more than 2 million US dollars in modernization of the enterprise and another 500,000 US dollars have been allocated for purchase of mining equipment from Ukraine.
“The equipment is expected to be delivered to the enterprises by the end of this month,” Karimov said, noting that new equipment will allow them to increase mining and processing of ore to 250,000 tons per year.
This month, the enterprise plans to mine 15,000 tons of ore and produce 300 tons of the lead-silver concentrate, the director general said.
More than 400 people currently work for the Adrasman ore refinery.
Established in 1967, the Adrasman ore refinery is engaged in mining and processing of lead ore for producing the lead-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.
