Charaltyn (Kazakhstan) plans IPO in Canada

/REUTERS, Almaty, Tatyana Seroshtanova, May 20, 05/ - Kazakhstan's gold producing company Charaltyn plans in year 2005 to unite its assets with Eurasia Gold Corporation and offer its shares in Toronto within IPO, president of Charaltyn JSC said on Friday. Baltabek Mukashev says consolidation of assets will be made by means of making an additional share issue of Charaltyn JSC by Eurasian Gold Corp in Toronto. He has not called volumes of issue and other details of the deal, has not answered under whose brand - Charaltyn or Eurasian Gold - IPO will be made. "We don't proclaim the volumes yet. At present work on consolidation of assets and IPO is carried out. Deals are to be completed in 2005", - Mukashev said. Funds, which will be received from the offering are to be spent for expansion of ore extraction and production of gold in Kazakhstan. In the beginning of the year Mukashev said about company's intention to borrow on domestic and foreign markets up to $30-40 m. Main and biggest shareholder of Charaltyn and Eurasian Gold Corp is TKA Corporation. In July of 2004 it bought from CIDEM, 100% subsidiary company of Thustle Mining Inc (Canada), 57.7% of shares of Eurasian Gold Corp., which owns gold-ore assets in East Kazakhstan. Charaltyn is Kazakhstan's fourth company, which has declared about the plans to offer its shares on western markets. Charaltyn, which develops two gold fields in East-Kazakhstan region and a silver field in North-Kazakhstan region, has an affiliated structure Andas- Altyn, which develops two gold fields in East-Kazakhstan region, estimates its extracted reserves at 85.5 tons of gold. The company and its affiliated structure in year 2004 increased gold output to 2.5 tons from 2.3 in previous year. Sales volume in year 2004 was 2.1 tons. Major importer of company's production is Switzerland. Company is also realizes several projects on increasing gold output. "On April 27 an experimental-industrial set of heap leaching was set in operation in Zhayma field" - Mukashev said. In 2005 it's planned to get 250 kg of gold in Zhayma field. In the nearest future company will start the first stage of geological exploration, which is to be finished already this summer and will require about $100,000 of investments. It's planned to spend about $450,000 for the second stage realization. "Geological exploration will let specify the forecasted resources of Novoutskarinskiy field, which are today estimated at 9,300 tons of silver, or equivalent of 200 tons of gold", - Mukashev said. If reserves are confirmed a processing plant will be built in the field. [2005-05-20]