On July 29, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid an official visit to Yoshlik-1 deposit of Almalyk Mining-Metallurgical Complex (AMMC), during which the President held a capsule laying ceremony for the construction of the third copper concentration plant (MOF-3).
Following the heavy media coverage of the event, a media trip to the construction site of the new copper concentration plant was organized by the Agency for Information and Mass Communications under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which was attended by more than 30 national media representatives.
Sergey Pashkin, MOF-3 Project Manager: "The construction of copper concentration plant No.3 in Almalyk is a great achievement for the Republic of Uzbekistan. The plant will process 60 million tons of ore per year and produce copper and molybdenum concentrate, which will increase the volume of copper production for the domestic market, increase the export potential of AMMC, and create more than 3000 additional jobs. This is truly a large-scale construction and the plant is one of a kind in Central Asia. Once the plant is put into operation, it will be the most state-of-the-art and sophisticated copper concentrating complex featuring a high level of automation of all production processes".
Aziz Muratov, Concentration Complex Chief Engineer under the Project Office: “A consortium of industrial construction leaders in Central Asia and Russia, Enter Engineering and Uralmashzavod PJSC, a company of Gazprombank's machine-building division, will take part in the construction of AMMC's Copper Concentration No. 3. Under the project, Enter Engineering and Uralmashzavod will jointly build a plant for the complex on a turnkey basis.” Enter Engineering will perform the construction of the facility and engineering work. And Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant (UZTM) will supply the complete set of process equipment. UZTM-KARTEX will supply over 100 units of equipment for MOF-3, including large-size mills, crushing and lifting equipment, secondary cone crushers, press rollers, various sieves, 300 cub.m flotation machine sections and other equipment.
The construction of the new copper concentration plant has been launched. Annual processing capacity will be 60 million tons of ore at Yoshlik-1 deposit, with copper content in copper concentrate of more than 160 thousand tons and annual output of finished products in the volume: copper more than 160 thousand tons, molybdenum more than 600 tons, gold more than 15 tons and silver more than 72 tons. At the same time copper extraction will be 85% due to the use of state-of-the-art technology.
Moreover, the MOF-3 under construction will use a combined method for concentrate enrichment - copper flotation with gold recovery by carbon in leaching (cyanide leaching), which is new for the combine.
The new plant will include storages for coarse and fine crushed ore, secondary and fine crushing building, main building with crushing, flotation and dewatering sections, hydrometallurgy workshop, finished product storage and shipment section, mechanical repair shops, tailing facilities, etc.
Finished copper concentrate in amount of 900 thous.tons will be shipped to the copper smelting plant by conveyor belts, molybdenum concentrate in amount of 1500 tons per year will be transported by motor transport, and final tailings will be pumped and stored at the tailings dump with the area of 2830 ha.
All technological processes of the new concentration plant will be fully automated, which will minimize the human error, improve the product quality, enhance the labor quality, and reduce emergencies.
A 196 hectare site is allocated for construction of MOF-3 on which the following works have been performed so far:
· excavation of rock mass for vertical (ground) leveling by drilling and blasting - 3,820 thous. m3.
· rock fill – 913 thous. m3
· boreholes drilling for blasting operations – 274 thous. l.m.
· boreholes drilling for geotechnical survey – 5990 l.m.
About 13,000 people and 1,000 special-purpose machinery units will be deployed during the construction of the facility. Enter Engineering Group of Companies has started excavation works involving more than 150 units of special equipment. Concurrently, construction of new temporary camps for the accommodation of more than 6,000 specialists is underway. At this stage, the facility for accommodation of 1500 specialists has already been launched and the areas for round-the-clock catering and leisure activities have been equipped. Enter Engineering Group of Companies is also recruiting specialists from the local population, over 500 people have been employed in the last 2 months.
