Uzhuralzoloto Increasing Ore Processing Volumes By 1 Million Tons

01.12.2009 — News

THE CHELYABINSK OBLAST.

OAO Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies (Uzhuralzoloto - Russian abbr. for "South Urals Gold"), is planning to start processing lean ores from the West Kurosan mine. The new equipment will enable the company to process ore with the gold content as low as one gram per ton.

The company informed RusBusinessNews that the strip mined reserves of the West Kurosan amount to 8 million tons of ore containing about 17 tons of gold. The company spent about 100 million roubles purchasing equipment capable of processing 800 thousand tons of ore annually.

In 2010 Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies is going to start with the construction of the third gold extraction plant at the Bereznyaki deposit whose reserves are estimated at 40 tons of gold. The start up of the plant with the annual processing capacity of 300 thousand tons is planned for 2011. The floatation technology instead of the traditional cyanide process will increase the yield from refractory ores from 40% to 90%.

OAO Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies is one of the largest Russian gold producing companies. The companies assets include deposits in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, Transbaikal and Krasnoyarsk Krais, and in the Republic of Khakassia. In 2008 Uzhuralzoloto Group of Companies has produced 5,261 kilos of gold.