Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Aset Isekeshev has said he has plans to increase his country’s copper cathode production by almost a quarter within the next five years.
Speaking at mining conference in Astana, Mr Isekeshev has said that output will rise from its current level of 400,000 tons to 495,000 tons. The bulk of the increase will come from AO Kazzinc, part of Glencore International, which looks set to increase its production by 70,000 tons with the rest of the increase taken up by Kazakhmys Plc, Kazakhstan’s biggest copper miner.
The nation’s President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, said in January in an address to the nation that it must double metals production and exports within five years.
Kazakhmys has sought investment from China to fund new smelters and mines. The firm plans to complete its new Boschekul copper facility by 2014. China Development Bank has lent Kazakhmys $2.7 billion for 15 years at a rate of LIBOR plus 4.8 percent to finance the project which will produce about 100,000 tonnes of copper concentrate a year. The company is now seeking finance for another expansion project at Aktogai, Chief Executive Oleg Novachuk said separately at the conference.
"We are in talks with our strategic partners and hope to inform the market on the results by the end of this year," Novachuk told the same conference. "We need $2 billion."
Kazzinc has said it will build a $700 million copper facility this year near the border in the east of the country near to the border with China.
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