Kazakhstan
and China are set to build a copper smelting plant with an annual capacity of
300,000 tonnes of copper. The high-tech enterprise for the manufacture of
high-value-added products will be established in the Abai region and will
become the largest in the country. A corresponding cooperation agreement worth
$1.5 billion was signed during a meeting between Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas
Bektenov and chairman of the Chinese company Xi Zhengping in Astana.
A cluster
uniting one of the world’s largest copper mines and a modern copper smelting
production facility is expected to be created following the plant construction.
The facility, which will use technologies that meet global eco-standards, is
scheduled to be launched by the end of 2028. It will meet the domestic market’s
needs for processing copper-containing raw materials and cathode copper widely
used in various industrial sectors, such as electric power and mechanical
engineering. Also, the new plant plans to produce refined gold, silver, and
sulfuric acid. The source of raw materials will be the copper concentrate from
the Bozshakol and Aktogai mining and processing enterprises, as well as the
Vostoktsvetmet processing plants.
