Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The explored gold reserves of Kazakhstan rose by 325 tons during the last three years.

This was announced by the Chairman of the Geology and Subsoil Committee of Industry and New Technologies Ministry Bazarbay Nurabayev in a seminar-workshop held on the condition of the resource base of the gold ore sector, the direction and development ways of the geological exploration work on gold in Kazakhstan.

"Currently, the subsoil use includes over 95 percent of explored gold reserves," he noted.

Nurabayev went on to say that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has given an instruction to increase the gold production of the country to 70 tons per year in the coming years.

"The instruction requires increasing not only the gold reserves through conducting geological exploration work at the expense of state budget but also at the expense of funds of subsoil users. Meanwhile, it needs revaluation of the previously identified fields, as well as solving the problems for enrichment of refractory gold ores," he stressed.

He also said the gold reproduction is impossible without forming exploration backup, and increasing the volume of geological exploration work using the latest advanced geophysical methods.

"It is important to make a revaluation of the reserves and to conduct geological and economic evaluation of not yet developed fields to restore the ore potential of the regions. Solving the problem of enrichment of refractory ores would involve exploiting the deposits which are unique for reserves, as well as a number of smaller similar fields," he added.

Kazakhstan has adopted a law for gold production. The law requires that all the gold produced in the country to be sold to the Kazakh National Bank.

According to official data, less than 15 percent of Kazakhstan's explored metals' reserves are currently in production and only 75 of 282 identified gold deposits are in operation.

Kazakhstan receives less than 1 percent of global investment in metals exploration.