Kirgiz Mining Combine
42°47'N 74°15'E
Southern Combine for Polymetals Yuzhpolimetall Production Association Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Kara Balta Ore Mining Combinat 14, Trud Street Kara Balta 720030 Kyrgyzstan Telephone: +7331 222-2746
Kyrgyzstan has a number of uranium ore mines, including those near the Issyk-Kul Lake, in Min-Kush in central Kyrgyzstan, in Kadji-Say in eastern Kyrgyzstan, and at Tyuamuyin located in southern Kyrgyzstan.
The Industrial Association "Southern Combine for Polymetals" (IA "Yuzhpolimetall" was established on the basis of the Kirgiz Mining Combine founded in the 1960s. The Combine mined and processed uranium ores from the Southern Kazakhstan ore region. Throughout the period of the Combine's activities 18 dumps of unamenable ores and barren rocks were formed on its sites
The Kara Balta Ore Mining Combine (an independent industrial enterprise since 1992) plant north of Bishkek was founded in 1956. For many years specializing in producing enriched uranium, it has converted to gold production. Plans are also in place to process uranium mined in Kazakstan at the Combine, and this is reportedly being done. The plant has highly skilled personnel which remained even though the plan was idle throughout 1994, with a small portion of the production facilities used to assemble South Korean refrigerators and micro wave rages from imported parts. An on-site tailings dump of the Kara-Baltinskii Mining Combine has been in service since 1955 to the present day. The beach of its embankment is 65% formed from loam and 35% covered with polyethylene film. As of 1995, the tailings dump was filled to 54% of the design capacity. Some yellowcake continues to be toll processed at the plant at Karabalta in Kyrgyzstan under a bilateral agreement with Kazakhstan which ran to 1999. Toll processing at Karabalta is quite expensive by world industry standards.
Sources and Methods
- MINING, PROCESSING AND ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM ORES INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER Project # 245 "Radleg"
- Nuclear Fuel Cycle in the Former USSR and in Russia: Structure, Possibilities, Prospects by Oleg Bukharin [Association for the Support of Nonproliferation], Moscow] 1993
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
