The mining and concentrating enterprise "DONSKOI GOK" (Kazakhstan) can in 1999 work out 2.З million tons of chromic ore

/REUTERS Almaty office, Aug.24, 99/ - Victor Till, the general director of DONSKOI GOK placed in the west of Kazakhstan, has told REUTERS, that enterprise plans before the end of the current year to increase the chromic ore production to 2.3 million tons a year in comparison with 1.6 million tons in the past year. "If in the past year the marketable output has made 1.662 million tons, this year we plan to sell about 2.300 million tons of ore, which is a processing, a concentrate", - Till said. The chromic ore, which the DONSKOI GOK makes, is used for melting of the various sorts of ferrochrome, which in its turn is required for high-quality steel. Enterprise unites two shafts ("Molodezhnaya" and "Central'naya"), some open pits and two concentrating mills. According to Till, in the 2001 the Molodezhnaya shaft for the first time can reach the scheduled capacity of 2 million tons of ore. He also added, that in August of the current year the "Poiskovy" open pit and a starting complex of the Central'naya shaft were entered into operation. The shaft design capacity is 100.000 tons of ore per year, the shaft has 240 millions tons of the proven ore resources. In recent years the investment in the Central'naya shaft has amounted to $22 million. "It is necessary to run another $30 million of investments in the nearest years and then "Central'naya" will make 600,000 tons per year and in 3-4 years this shaft together with "Molodezhnaya" will be the main object of chromic ore production", - has told Till. It is planned, that the "Poiskovy" open pit next year will reach the design capacity and will extract up to 770,000 tons of ore per year. "These volumes are necessary to practically completely providing of ours ferroalloy plants with ore ", - he added. The main consumers of chromic ore are Aksussky ferroalloy smelter, which resaving 100.000 tons of ore per month and Aktyubinsk ferrochrome smelter, which consumes approximately 50.000 tons of chromic ore per month. "That remains, - about 20 percents of production, - we sell to some chemical plants in Russia, to the Novotroitsky chromic alloys smelter, the contract is made with Poland", - the general director has told. The enterprise prefers to sell the final product - ferrochrome, rather than the crude ore. "Before DONSKOI GOK exported grude ore, now the policy is different. It is necessary to sell a final product - ferrochrome, and we provide ours ferroalloy smelters, so that they could compete by the high-quality alloys ", - has told Till. The multinational company KAZKHROM, which is controlled by the Eurasian Bank, unites DONSKOI GOK, together with Aksussky and Aktyubinsk ferroalloy smelters. The probable resources of the DONSKOI GOK are estimated in 430 million tons of chromic ore.