Introduction: The Altyn Tor Gold project is located in the Tien Shan district, Naryn province, Kyrgyz Republic. Altyn Tor Gold Project lies in Soltan Sary gold mineralization Zone, which extends over 300km length and is part of the major Tien Shan Shear Zone. Solton Sory Shear mineralization zone contains number of gold deposits. Gold mineralization of the Project is hosted by quartz, quartz-carbonate veins and stockworks. The project has High grade ore, free milling type gold with high (~60%) gravity recovery.

Historically, Altyn Tor Gold project was operated by OJSC “Kyrgyzaltyn (Govt. Agency) who commissioned the pilot open pit in 1993. Gold processing plant with the gravity circuit had been commissioned with capacity of 60,000 tons / annum in 1994.

At present, OJSC “Kyrgyzaltyn (Govt. Agency) holds the Mining License over the 2 sq.km area, and a Partnership Agreement dated December 20, 2021, was signed between LLC “Avelum Partner” (“Avelum”) and OJSC “Kyrgyzaltyn” to operate the plant and share the profits. The major shareholders of Avelum Partners LLC are Hira Infratech Pvt. Ltd. India and Mededu Dubai.

Avelum carried out the activities from January 15, 2022, to jointly carry out mining and geological work, repair and restoration work, as well as work to upgrade the equipment of the crushing unit and the concentrator unit of the processing plant. The Company completed repair and restoration work of equipment at production sites and on May 22, 2022, the processing plant was launched and ore processing and production of gravity concentrate began. Since the project took over by the Avelum management, the company has processed about 33,000 tons of gold ore with an average grade of 1.54g/t and produced the 161 tons of gold concentrate with an average grade of 209g/t which contains the Au content of 33.80kg (66% of recovery). Avelum has the mandate to increase the production capacity by increasing the mining and processing capacity to achieve the increased production capacity of 300,000 tons/annum. Company is in the process of getting the required clearance for recovering gold through leaching method.

Resources: Feasibility study has been carried out by Kyrgyz Altyn OJSC based on extensive trenching and drilling work carried before commencing mining operations. Avelum has remodeled all the available data to reassess the resource. Further, Avelum has commenced “brown field” exploration to expand the resource base.

The Available Resources in the project based on the new drill data. It is to be noted that significant quantum of high grade tailings and low grade stockpiles are available in the project which can be treated through leaching.

Pit Design: the previous pit design was done based on 1 g/t cut off, which can only be mined with gravity circuit. Since, the current plan involves setting up leaching plant, 0.5 g/t cut off has been  used to design the pit. Significant amount of resource is available below the current designed pit which will enhance the project life.

Project Upside: The project also has a significant upside considering the resource available which can be improved in confidence and mined. Exploration is planned to convert the inferred category of resources to indicated category. The current pit has been designed up to the depth of 3440m. Between 3440m and 3300m, there is an inferred category of resource about 0.90 million tons of ore with the metal content of 1470kg is available at 1.00g/t cut-off which can be mined by underground through developing the decline. Further, from that level (3300m) another 100m up to the depth of 3200m needs to be explored and confirm the probable resources of another 1470kg of Gold.

Infrastructure: Avelum has laid out water pipeline to secure round the year operation for the project.

With the installation of these new equipment’s of the crushing and screening unit, now the crushing circuit delivers a product of 10 – 15mm. Earlier with the old equipment, the crushing circuit produced only 40 – 60 mm to the milling plant. This crushed ore (10-15 mm) gives an increase in the productivity of mills for processing ore.

Designing work is underway for the leaching plant and tailing dam with a target to achieve 300,000 TPA operation from 2024.

Altyn Tor Open Pit Gold Mine: Team associated  with the expansion of mine and processing facility.

High grade gold ore from Altyn Tor Mine.