The Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Kombinat announced the discovery on April 7 of Balpantau and Tamdybulak gold ore deposits in Tamdy district as part of Muruntau quarry, where, the first blasting works were perfoirmed and overburden work began.
Gold-bearing ore from new deposits will be transported to hydrometallurgical plant No. 2 of NMMC via the 33 km-railroad. According to estimates, ore reserves at the deposits surpass 40 million tons. The project is expected to create 653 new jobs.
It is expected that more than 3 million tons of gold-bearing ore will be mined at the deposits annually for almost 15 years. For these works, it is planned to purchase 7 hydraulic excavators, 5 drilling rigs, 23 dump trucks, 2 diesel locomotives and other mining equipment. To date, 1 hydraulic excavator and 10 dump trucks with a carrying capacity of 90 tons have been delivered.
The Muruntau gold mine in 2020 topped the ranking of the largest gold deposits in the world. The mine produced about 56.7 tons of gold in 2020. Its open-cast mining began in 1967; by 2018, more than 1.5 billion tons of rock mass had been extracted from the quarry.
Gold is the main export item of Uzbekistan. In 2020, the country exported $5.8 billion worth of it (38.3% of total exports), in 2019 - $4.9 billion (28.2%). In 2021, manufactured goods, including copper and steel, ranked first in exports, surpassing gold (26.1% vs. 24.7%), but in two months gold again took the lead with $2.36 billion of exports of (57 %).
