How does this connect (from the Gold Price Monitor strand)? Perhaps it's a positive for KGFC?
To: John Barendrecht (852 )
From: thomas becker Jul 25 1997 8:56AM EST
Reply #865 of 906
ALMATY, July 24 (Reuter) - Kazakhstan's refined gold output fell to
4.243 tonnes in the first half of 1997, 16 percent down on the same
year-ago level, Deputy Prime Minister Umirzak Shukeyev told a government
meeting on Thursday.
"This (level of output) is conditioned by high costs of gold production
and bad management," said Shukeyev in a report obtained by Reuters.
He said by June 1, 1997 the government of the former Soviet republic had
issued 215 licenses authorising development of Kazakhstan's mineral
wealth, and a further 29 contracts for their exploitation.
"The Energy and Natural Resources Ministry should monitor the fulfilment
of the licences issued and contracts signed,"
Shukeyev said.
Boris Sadchikov, deputy head of the industry ministry's development
department, said last week that Kazakhstan planned to produce around 10
tonnes of gold this year, slightly below last year's 10.3 tonnes.
But the government, working on a new programme for developing
Kazakhstan's gold industry to 2005, hopes to boost output to 13-14
tonnes next year, 20 tonnes within the next five years and 40 tonnes by
2005.
Under a previous programme from 1992, Kazakhstan planned to raise gold
output to 40 tonnes in 1997 and to over 50 tonnes by the year 2000.
Sadchikov said the government expected investors to put up to $1.5
billion into gold production by 2005.
Kazakhstan -- a vast steppeland country with a population of just 16.7
million people and a territory five times the size of France -- has the
world's seventh largest proven gold reserves of around 1,000 tonnes.
But the country's estimated gold reserves are around 10,000 tonnes --
second largest in the world after South Africa's, the government says.
In contrast to Soviet times, when it was just a cheap supplier of
concentrated auriferous ores to gold refineries in other parts of the
Soviet Union, Kazakhstan now refines over 90 percent of its gold
locally.
Shukeyev said around 65 percent of Kazakh gold is made from auriferous
ores while the remainder from lead and copper by-products.
15:12 07-24-97 |
