Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Sept. 8
By Demir Azizov - Trend:
The project for resuming tungsten mining at the Ingichki field, the sole tungsten deposit in Uzbekistan, has been postponed.
The field is located in Uzbekistan's central province of Samarkand.
A representative of the Uzbek State Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources (Uzgeolcom) told Trend on Sept. 8 that the project was postponed due to the excess of this metal in the market and the uncertainty with its price.
Earlier, it was reported that a draft project, with a preliminary value of $50 million, envisaged the restoration of work this mine. The production volume was projected to stand nearly at 300,000 metric tons per year.
Previously, it was also projected to construct a new dressing works; however its capacity and cost have not yet been determined.
In July 2008, Uzbekistan announced a tender to select a foreign partner/co-founder to create a joint venture on a parity basis for mining of tungsten at the Ingichki field.
But the tender was cancelled in late 2008 due to a decrease in tungsten prices in the world market.
In the past two years, Uzbekistan has negotiated with a number of South Korean and Chinese companies to draft a feasibility study for the project. However, Uzbekistan did not succeed to sign any agreement with the parties.
Tungsten extraction at the Ingichki mine has been carried out since 1941.
The Ingichki mine was mothballed in 1996 due to low world prices for the tungsten, which is a hard, rare metal used for production of hard materials, alloys, armaments, and high-temperature applications, such as light bulbs, cathode-ray tube, vacuum tube filaments, heating elements etc.
Residual ore reserves at the Ingichki field stand at about 11.6 million metric tons with a tungsten trioxide content of 65,000 metric tons.
Uzbek Refractory and Heat-Resistant Metals Open Joint-Stock Company (UzKTJM OJSC) located in the city of Chirchik, Tashkent Province, is the sole producer of tungsten in Uzbekistan.
Its processing capacity stands at 2,000 metric tons of tungsten concentrate per year.
In subsequent years of its operation, the UzKTJM was forced to start processing the tolling raw materials from abroad, and significantly reduce its production.
In early 2006, Uzbek government approved a program to explore the country's tungsten deposits during 2007 - 2013, reaching a total tungsten concentrate production of 2,700 metric tons.
This was done in order to keep the UzKTJM running at full capacity.
However, due to several financial and technical reasons the program's implementation has not yet started.
The Uzgeolcom and South Korea's Shindong Resources Co. Ltd. signed founding documents in June 2013 to create a joint venture called Uzbekistan-Korea Tungsten.
The venture is projected to explore the Sautbay tungsten deposit in Uzbekistan's Navoi Province.
The project, worth $145 million, includes the construction of an ore-dressing complex with a capacity of 1,500 metric tons of highly enriched tungsten concentrate per year.
The construction is scheduled to start in 2015.
Tungsten production decreased in Uzbekistan in 2013 by 25 percent or to 98 metric tons as compared to 2012.
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