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KYZYL GOLD PROJECT COULD BE THE KEY
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Why Purveyors Of World Oil Shortage Is BULLSHIT--See This News Letter
Robert Friedland's lengthy quest for Kazakh gold may finally bear fruit
While it can sometimes take years to reach the finish line, Robert Friedland has scored lucrative deals developing major mines in Canada and Mongolia, and, now, maybe a major Kazakh gold mine.
Author: Dorothy KosichPosted: Thursday , 25 Mar 2010
RENO, NV -
Robert Friedland, the über mining investor who first got international mining excited about Mongolia, is now concentrating on the mineral wealth potential of Kazakhstan, a nation already standing on the threshold of becoming a major world energy producer and exporter over the next eight years.
In an address to the annual Asia Mining Congress, Friedland announced Ivanhoe Mines holds 100% ownership of the Kyzyl Gold Project in the Kyzyl Kum Desert, the 11th largest desert in the world.
The 115,000 square mile desert is divided among three central Asian nations, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The area is well known for its deposits of gold, uranium, copper, aluminum, silver, natural gas and oil.
The Muruntau gold deposit is situated in the Uzbek section of the Kyzyl Kum. In the late 1990s, it yielded about 2 million ounces of gold annually.
There are 23 gold-bearing regions in Kazakhstan. Robert Friedland first partnered with the Kazakh Government in the 1990s when his Indochina Goldfields entered into agreement and understandings with four major shareholders of the Bakyrchik Gold. The acquisition of 26% of Bakyrchik Gold expended Indochina and Friedland's holdings into the Kazak Republic.
The Bakyrchik property is located in the village of Aueznov in north-eastern Kazakhstan, about 100 km from Ust Kamengorsk, which is considered the industrial center of East Kazakhstan. The Bakyrchik gold mine originally began producing in 1956 to provide gold-bearing flux to copper smelters in Ust-Kamenogorsk and later to smelting facilities in Russia.
The mine is comprised of five shafts, process plant workshops, warehouses, administration building and accommodations. The underground has been explored and developed for mining from a series of development drifts driven at 40-meter vertical intervals.
Meanwhile, another Friedland company, First Dynasty Mines, tried to develop the Vasilkovskoye mine in north Kazakhstan, considered one of the largest gold mines in the world. At the time the deposit held estimated mineable reserves of 7.7 million ounces of gold. A consortium headed by Teck Resources and First Dynasty Mines first proposed developing Vasilkovskoye in 1996, but were rejected by the Kazakh Government, which owned a 20% stake in the consortium.
Nowadays, Kazakhstan's economy is booming, thanks to the discovery of massive oilfields both onshore and offshore in Kazakhstan's section of the Caspian Sea. Reserves are estimated at 79.6 billion barrels of oil and 3.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Russia, China, the U.S. and Iran have all tried to gain a foothold in the control of Central Asian energy. Because Russia is Kazakhstan's largest economic trading partner, it has been difficult for the Kazakh Republic to distance itself too far from Russia.
Despite the Vasilkovskoye project setback and the more pressing demands of Friedland's Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia, Friedland companies held on to their Kazakh mining holdings throughout the petropolitical skirmishes concerning which nation will eventually control Kazakhstan's petroleum and gas industry. In 2007 Kazakhstan exported 1.2 million barrels of oil in all directions.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has the second largest uranium reserves in the world, around 1.5 million tons, or 20% of the world's supply. The nation has plans to increase uranium production to 15,000 tons this year.
As announced by Friedland Thursday, his Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines and its Kazakh partner Altynalmas Gold have combined their interests in two significant gold deposits into a newly named Kyzyl Gold Project. Friedland said Ivanhoe has increased its interest in Altynalmas Gold from 49% to 50%. Altynalmus holds 100% of the Kyzyl Gold Project.
The Kyzyl Project contains the Bakrychik Deposit and the nearby Bolshevik Gold Deposit.
Thanks to the Bakryrchik Gold Mine, the Kyzyl Project is served by an established railway and electrical grid, and has significant, existing underground workings, shafts and minesite infrastructure.
Altynalmas Gold believes that gold recoveries of 85% to 88% can be realized in a deposit said to be "double refractory," which makes processing difficult.
A drilling program is now underway to support an updated, independent resource estimate and the necessary feasibility studies needed to get project financing.
"With this consolidated ownership of Altynalmas Gold, we now are positioned to rapidly complete a pre-feasibility study and move ahead with the full feasibility study to ensure that the Kyzyl Project stays on a direct track to become one of Central Asia's leading gold producers," Friedland said.
‘We have retained senior investment-banking advisers and are in detailed discussions with potential strategic investors, including established gold-industry players and sovereign-wealth funds that have expressed keen interest in the development of the Kyzyl Gold Project," he added.
"We also intend to pursue an independent stock-exchange listing for Altynalmas to facilitate participation by a broad base of investments," Friedland concluded.
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