MINEX Forum

Month: February 2024

  • Azerbaijan’s AzerGold discloses volume of investments in mining projects

    Azerbaijan’s AzerGold discloses volume of investments in mining projects

    Until now, Azerbaijan’s AzerGold CJSC has invested 550 million manat ($323.5 million) in the implementation of mining projects, Chairman of the Board of AzerGold Zakir Ibrahimov said during a press conference on the results of activities for 2023.

    He noted that 8 percent, or 45 million manat ($26.4 million), of this amount was provided through allocations from the state budget.

    “These are mainly funds allocated from the state budget in the first years of the CJSC’s operation. Currently, funding from the state budget is carried out mainly for the implementation of iron ore projects, which are a new area of activity,” he added.

  • В Восточном Казахстане наказали ТОО “Казцинк” за загрязнение реки

    В Восточном Казахстане наказали ТОО “Казцинк” за загрязнение реки

    По итогам внеплановой проверки за загрязнение реки в Восточно-Казахстанской области оштрафовали ТОО “Казцинк”, – передает Almaty.tv со ссылкой на пресс-службу Комитета экологического регулирования и контроля Минэкологии и природных ресурсов РК.

    Как отметили в ведомстве, январе 2024 года завершена внеплановая проверка в отношении Риддерского горно-обогатительного комплекса ТОО “Казцинк” по факту загрязнения реки Ульба.

    – В ходе проведения внеплановой проверки отобранные специалистами Департамента экологии пробы сточных вод показали превышение по марганцу в 4,5 раза. Также установлено что в результате ненадлежащей эксплуатации очистных сооружений происходят многочисленные изливы в реку Ульба. По итогам внеплановой проверки на ТОО «Казцинк»  наложен административный штраф в размере 50 млн. тенге а также выдано предписание об устранении нарушений, – говорится в сообщении пресс-службы Комитета экоконтроля.

  • In Eastern Kazakhstan, Kazzinc was punished for river pollution

    In Eastern Kazakhstan, Kazzinc was punished for river pollution

    According to a report by Almaty.tv citing the press service of the Committee for Environmental Regulation and Control of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Kazzinc has been fined for polluting the Ulba River in the East Kazakhstan region following an unscheduled inspection.

    The department highlighted that in January 2024, an unscheduled inspection was conducted concerning the pollution of the Ulba River attributed to the Ridder mining and processing complex of Kazzinc.

    “During the unscheduled inspection, wastewater samples collected by specialists from the Department of Ecology revealed a 4.5-fold excess of manganese. It was also found that numerous discharges into the Ulba River were occurring due to improper operation of treatment facilities. Based on the findings of the unscheduled inspection, Kazzinc was fined 50 million tenge administratively, and an order was issued to rectify the violations,” stated the press service of the Environmental Control Committee.

  • «Брендт» освоит два месторождения золота на севере Казахстана

    «Брендт» освоит два месторождения золота на севере Казахстана

    Компания «Брендт» начнёт разработку золоторудных месторождений Южно-Аккаргинское и Южно-Леонидовское Аккаргинского рудного поля (Житикаринский район Костанайской области) в 2024 году. Проектную документацию недропользователя опубликовали на Едином экологическом портале Казахстана.

    Вести добычу планируют открытым способом. Календарный график отработки Аккаргинского рудного поля прописали до 2029 года. Предприятие рассчитывает получать 420 тыс. т руды в год.

    Запасы месторождений поставили на госбаланс в январе прошлого года. Балансовые запасы Южно-Аккаргинского составляют 966,95 тыс. т окисленных золотосодержащих руд и 1,385 т золота (среднее содержание драгметалла — 1,43 г/т), забалансовые — 3,075 млн т руды и 2,274 т золота.

    Балансовые запасы Южно-Леонидовского месторождения, в свою очередь, определены в объёме 1,087 млн т руды и 1,375 т золота (среднее содержание — 1,27 г/т), забалансовые — 2,444 млн т руды и 1,438 т драгметалла.

    Перерабатывать руду компания «Брендт» собирается на собственной золотоизвлекательной фабрике методом кучного выщелачивания.

  • Brandt will develop two gold deposits in northern Kazakhstan

    Brandt will develop two gold deposits in northern Kazakhstan

    The Brandt company is gearing up to kick off development at the gold deposits of the Yuzhno-Akkarginskoye and Yuzhno-Leonidovskoye Akkarginsky ore field in 2024. This project, outlined in the subsoil user’s documentation, has been made public on the Unified Environmental Portal of Kazakhstan.

    Their approach involves open-pit mining for extraction. The mining schedule for the Akkarga ore field is mapped out until 2029, with an anticipated annual ore yield of 420 thousand tons.

    These deposits’ reserves were officially added to the state balance sheet as of January last year. For Yuzhno-Akkarga, the balance reserves stand at 966.95 thousand tons of oxidized gold ores and 1.385 tons of gold (with an average precious metal content of 1.43 g/t), while off-balance reserves comprise 3.075 million tons of ore and 2.274 tons of gold.

    Meanwhile, the balance reserves for the Yuzhno-Leonidovskoye deposit are recorded as 1.087 million tons of ore and 1.375 tons of gold (with an average content of 1.27 g/t), alongside off-balance reserves of 2.444 million tons of ore and 1.438 tons of precious metal.

    Brandt’s strategy involves ore processing at its own gold recovery plant, utilizing the heap leaching method.

  • Energy Transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina is on hold

    Energy Transition of Bosnia and Herzegovina is on hold

    Bosnia and Herzegovina has not yet adopted the final version of the National Energy Climate Plan, although the deadline was set by the end of last year. In practice, this means that energy transition measures are implemented unsystematically and without clear deadlines, especially when it comes to phasing out coal, one of the biggest polluters. BHRT has checked the experiences and challenges in countries that have advanced in the planned transition to renewable energy sources in one of the EU members, Slovenia.

    A new image of the former mining region of Zasavja, east of Ljubljana – Solar power plants have become an almost indispensable decoration of business buildings and households. Entrepreneur Sergej Smrkolj says that he made the right decision five years ago. Today, it independently produces half of the electricity needed in production. The energy crisis only reinforced the effect of self-sustainability.

    “We did not invest anything in the project. GENi invested in the project. We pay off the project with the consumption of electricity. After ten years, it becomes our property,” emphasizes Sergej Smrkolj, director of “Skitti”, Izlake.

    The process of energy transition in Slovenia was initiated by the decision not to build a new unit of the Trbovlje Thermal Power Plant, which was adopted more than two decades ago. Ten years ago, the existing block was shut down, and the last mines were closed. With a lot of challenges.

    “It was really painful for some workers who were left without everything, stayed overnight without everything and had no more work,” says Ervin Renko, HSE Energetska družba, Trbovlje.

    Official data show that in the long process of closing the mine, the Zasavja region lost 23 percent of its jobs, and 11 percent of its population decreased. The country is gradually remediating the negative consequences with significant help from the European Fund for Just Transition. 258 million euros are earmarked for two mining regions in Slovenia.

    “The largest part of the EU funds will be for the economy for companies and for municipalities. In the first phase, this is already happening, the first tender was published, municipalities will create economic business zones and prepare the ground for companies to do their business here,” says Jani Medvešek, director of the Zasavje Regional Development Agency.

    With the strategy of getting out of coal, Slovenia also planned to shut down the Šoštanj TPP in 2033. The Slovenian Ministry of Energy says that coal production has become unprofitable, which could speed up the process.

    “That should stop and it will stop. Due to the energy crisis, that year was not extended, because the economic price of electricity from TE Šoštanj is very high, because it includes the price of CO2 coupons, so maybe due to economic reasons, electricity production will stop even before” 33rd year”, emphasizes Hinko Šolinc from the Ministry of Environment, Climate and Energy of Slovenia.

    One of the key tools of the energy transition in Slovenia is “Eco Sklad”. This public fund annually places around 50 million euros in loans and up to 80 million euros in grants for energy efficiency and renewable resources, water protection, and waste management. Grants cover between 20 and 50 percent of investments. The money was provided from a special tax for energy efficiency, and from the sale of carbon coupons.

    “Recently, we started introducing measures to combat energy poverty. These measures provide grants for households with low incomes and these are 100 percent grants, because they cover the entire investment,” says Mojca Vendramin, director of “Eko Sklada”.

    Slovenia follows the EU’s goals that by 2030, renewable energy sources make up 45 percent of the energy mix, and that harmful emissions are reduced by 55 percent compared to the reference year. The expansion of the photovoltaic screen built on the former slag dump from the Trbovlje Thermal Power Plant is in accordance with these plans, BHRT writes.

  • Suspicious deal: Armenian government accepted 12.5% of Lydian shares without audit

    Suspicious deal: Armenian government accepted 12.5% of Lydian shares without audit

    The Armenian government took ownership of a 12.5% stake in Lydian Armenia, which operates the Amulsar gold mine, without finding out their real market value and conducting a financial audit on possible debts and liabilities of the company, News.am reports following the Economy Ministry’s response to its inquiry.

    “In the case of long-term and large projects like Amulsar, state participation in them is expedient and effective for both the government and the private sector,” the ministry explained, without unveiling the donation conditions.

    When asked whether the government took measures to conduct an external audit of Lydian Armenia CJSC in order to find out the company’s current liabilities (long-term, short-term, overdue, bad debts, etc.), the ministry said: “Before deciding to accept the donation, the Armenian government had worked with the company for months, studying the available information and documents to make sure that the final decision would be in line with interests of the state.”

    Under the Armenian law on audit activity, an audit is carried out by audit organizations, whose task is to verify the information provided in the financial statements of the audited company in order to express an independent opinion on the credibility of the information.

    The ministry’s response makes it clear that the government has not commissioned any organization to conduct an external audit of Lydian Armenia, while to qualify the conclusion provided on the basis of the data obtained as a result of the research conducted by the government, as an independent assessment is, to put it mildly, inappropriate. The standards used by the government also remain unknown. Both mandatory and voluntary audits are conducted in accordance with the procedure established by legal acts.

    Moreover, the government did not even find out the market (real) value of the donated shares, probably acting on the principle “never look a gift horse in the mouth ” without assessing all the possible consequences of a dubious donation.

    “Since Lydian is recognized a closed joint-stock company, its shares are not represented on the market, thus their exact market value is not determined at the moment,” the ministry explained.

  • German think tank ranks Kazakhstan as ‘world middle power’

    German think tank ranks Kazakhstan as ‘world middle power’

    A study by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), focusing on the world’s ‘middle powers’ and published on 23 January, has identified twelve of them: Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil.

    As the authors explain, although the twelve states are very different, what they have in common is their focus on economic development, the strong emphasis on security and stability and the pursuit of strategic autonomy.

    SWP singled out Kazakhstan in particular for its balanced foreign policy, its positioning as a Central Asian key player, and its rich resources – and for being a key element of the so-called Middle Corridor.

    “Kazakhstan has a wealth of resources that attracted the interest of the USA and Europe: fossil fuels (especially petroleum), metals, minerals and rare earth. The country has potential for the production of green energy sources (Hydrogen), in which the European Union (EU) has recently shown growing interest”, SWP writes.

    The German institute also said that Kazakhstan is banking on the EU’s Global Gateway project, as an alternative to China’s Belt-and-Road initiative. “Kazakhstan presents itself as a bridge between East and West and – with the (Caspian) port of Aktau – as a hinge in the Trans-Caspian Corridor”, the paper says.

    On foreign policy, SWP said that despite the country’s close relations with Russia, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev “unequivocally criticised the actions of his Russian counterpart” in the context of the war in Ukraine.

    “He unequivocally told publicly President Putin at the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg in June 2022 that the legal principle of territorial integrity of states should prevail and made it clear that Kazakhstan will not recognize the annexed territories in Ukraine”, the report reads.

    According to the German think tank, in the thirty years of its national independence, a mode of foreign policy action has developed in Kazakhstan that impairs the hegemonic claims of the major powers Russia, China, and the USA, through selective cooperation with these geopolitical antagonists.

    This policy of not taking sides, but engaging with all guarantees Kazakhstan a maximum of independence and creates space for the articulation and enforcement of state self-interests, SWP concludes.

    Euractiv asked Roman Vassilenko, deputy minister of foreign affairs of Kazakhstan, to comment on the news that his country was ranked among the world’s middle powers.

    Vassilenko emphasized multilateralism, a key feature of his country’s foreign policy.

    “If we are to find sustainable solutions to global problems, in an era characterised by increases in both polarisation and interconnectivity, we need more robust multilateralism”, he said on Wednesday (14 February).

    According to Vassilenko, this was even more important now, a time when there has been a notable shift in the balance of power.

    “Now, this responsibility does not only fall on the traditional “great powers”, but on a broader range of international players. Countries like Kazakhstan are increasingly able to make critical contributions to geopolitical issues, by leveraging their strong, multifaceted diplomatic relationships as well as their resources”, the diplomat said.

    He recognised that it was a pleasure to be mentioned by a respectable German institution in such a context, but this was obviously a recognition of the role of Kazakhstan in the global diplomatic power play and a call for a more robust and active engagement.

  • Kyrgyzstan, Russia discuss cooperation in energy sector, industry and transport

    Kyrgyzstan, Russia discuss cooperation in energy sector, industry and transport

    Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Akylbek Japarov made a working visit to Moscow, the Cabinet’s press service reported. Akylbek Japarov met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

    They discussed relevant aspects of bilateral trade, economic and investment cooperation.

    A special attention was paid to implementation of joint projects in energy sector, industry, transport, cultural and humanitarian spheres.

    Importance of further deepening of integration within the Eurasian Economic Union, Commonwealth of Independent States and other multilateral formats was highlighted.

  • Qarmet обязали выплатить миллиардные неустойки за нарушение контракта на добычу угля

    Qarmet обязали выплатить миллиардные неустойки за нарушение контракта на добычу угля

    Министерство промышленности и строительства направило компании «АрселорМиттал Темиртау» (с недавнего времени компания называется Qarmet) уведомление о начислении 4,6 млрд тенге неустойки за нарушение обязательств по контракту на добычу каменного угля и метана в шахтах Карагандинской области.

    «В соответствии с условиями контракта (пп. 3 п.15.1 статьи 15 контракта) за невыполнение финансовых обязательств за 2020 год, оплатить неустойку в размере суммы неисполненного за отчетный период обязательства в сумме 948 923,0 тыс. тенге: финансирование научно-исследовательских, научно-технических и (или) опытно-конструкторских работ в размере — 948 923,0 тыс. тенге. За 2021 год, оплатить неустойку в размере суммы неисполненного за отчетный период обязательства в сумме 1 017 932,0 тыс. тенге: финансирование научно-исследовательских, научно-технических и (или) опытно-конструкторских работ в размере — 1 017 932,0 тыс. тенге. За 2022 год оплатить неустойку в размере суммы неисполненного за отчетный период обязательства в сумме 2 587 876,89 тыс. тенге», — говорится в тексте уведомления за подписью вице-министра промышленности и строительства Ирана Шархана, направленного угледобывающей компании.

    Неустройка за 2022 год состоит из 150 млн тенге, которые должны были быть направлены на социально-экономическое развитие региона и развитие его инфраструктуры; 940,6 млн тенге — на обучение, повышение квалификации и переподготовки казахстанских работников; 1,49 млрд тенге — на финансирование НИОКР; а также 8,8 млн тенге — на внутристрановые ценности по отношению к работам.

    На 15 шахтах было добыто в 2020 году 9,5 млн тонн продукции при плане 13,1 млн тонн или 72,61% от плана; в 2021 году 8,3 млн тонн при плане 14,1 млн тонн (58,93%). В 2020-2022 годы компания вообще не финансировала НИОКР при плане в 948,9 млн тенге в 2020 году, 1,02 млрд тенге в 2021 году и 1,5 млрд тенге в 2022 году. Кроме того, объем инвестиций в 2022 году составил 0 тенге при плане в 157,1 млрд тенге. В уведомлении перечислены и другие нарушения, допущенные компанией.

    Компания также должна оплатить штраф в размере 20 месячных расчетных показателей (73,84 тыс. тенге в 2024 году) за непредоставление отчета об исполнении лицензионно-контрактных условий за 2022 год. Qarmet обязали устранить в месячный срок выявленные нарушения контрактных обязательств, а также представить все необходимые документы, подтверждающие их устранение (копии платежных поручений, договоры, акты выполненных работ); представить документы, подтверждающие оплату неустойки.

    В случае невыполнения требований уведомления в установленный срок Минпром вправе принять меры в соответствии с условиями контракта и действующим законодательством, в том числе прекратить действие контракта в одностороннем порядке.

    Владелец Allur Андрей Лаврентьев, который купил металлургическую компанию «АрселорМиттал Темиртау» и «АрселорМиттал Актау», вложил в стабилизацию деятельности компании Qarmet (Карметкомбинат) 28,6 млрд тенге частных инвестиций, сообщалось в конце декабря 2023 года. Также в декабре на предприятии вырос объем производства, увеличились запасы ферросплавов и угля, возобновлена отгрузка готовой продукции.

    ArcelorMittal при посредничестве министерства промышленности и строительства передал контроль над казахстанскими активами государственному институту развития Qazaqstan Investment Corporation. QIC в свою очередь отдал предприятие Qazaqstan Steel Group Андрея Лаврентьева, известного проектами в машиностроении.

    О сделке с Arcelor было объявлено 8 декабря 2023 года на пресс-конференции в Астане, где министр промышленности, бывший глава холдинга «Байтерек» Канат Шарлапаев объявил об условиях передачи актива.

    Покупка финансировалась за счет размещения облигаций на астанинской бирже AIX, специально созданной для этого компанией Лаврентьева QSG Holding. Объем первого выпуска равнялся $355 млн, ставка установлена на уровне 15% годовых. Погашение ожидается в 2027 году. Программа выпуска должна действовать пять лет. По данным площадки, с момента размещения 21 ноября на вторичном рынке с бумагами компании не было совершено ни одной сделки.

    Сумма сделки по продаже активов ArcelorMittal составила $286 млн, еще $700 млн составляет задолженность АМТ и «АрселорМиттал Актау» перед бывшим собственником.

    В конце ноября стало известно о намерении ЕНПФ вложить 1,5 трлн тенге в масштабные инфраструктурные проекты, в том числе связанные с энергетикой. Ожидалось, что 500 млрд тенге из общего объема будет направлено до конца года.

    В аналитическом отчете Arcelor по итогам III квартала 2023 года сообщается, что текущая балансовая стоимость (carrying value) АМТ составляет $1,8 млрд, при этом компания за 9 месяцев года генерировала отрицательную EBITDA, а средняя EBITDA, за исключением 2021 года, составляла $0,3 млрд. В Arcelor подчеркивают: с 1995 года компания потеряла на обменном курсе $1,3 млрд.

    Кроме того, покидающий Казахстан ArcelorMittal направит 16 млрд тенге в фонд «Казакстан халкына» на социальное развитие Карагандинской области.