East Kaz Alloys will conduct geological exploration for chrome ores at the Saburkhan-3 site in the Zharma district of the Abai region. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
"The site is located 160 km southeast of the regional center Semey and 9 km from the district center Kalbatau village... The type of work is prospecting for chrome in the area of the Chara ultrabasic belt," according to a statement on planned activities available to Kursiv.
The area of the site is 49 blocks or 59.9 square km. The exploration license was obtained by the company on November 4, 2022.
"Given that the surface waters in the study area are represented by rivers (mostly drying up) located in close proximity to the nuclear test site (...Lake Shagan is the most polluted water body) – environmental studies have been conducted by many scientific teams and described in detail in open publications," the statement says.
The company plans to dig trenches spaced 400-800 meters apart. They will be up to 50 meters long, 0.8 meters wide, and two meters deep. A total of 16 trenches (800 meters) with a total volume of 1,280 cubic meters are planned.
Also, wells with depths of 100 and 300 meters will be drilled at the site, totaling 3,800 linear meters.
"Drilling will be carried out in promising areas to trace known ore zones and assess their ore potential at depth, as well as to evaluate newly identified geophysical anomalies," the document notes.
The co-owners of East Kaz Alloys (headed by Baglan Koshanov) are the Dutch companies Yilmaden Holding B.V. (headed by Ozturk Evren) and Swed Alloys Holding B.V.
At the same time, the contact details of the East Kaz Alloys representative are indicated in the announcement for public hearings with a reference to the email of the Turkish Yildirim Group (this group is involved in several mining projects in Kazakhstan).
The largest producer and processor of chrome ores in Kazakhstan is Kazchrome (a key source of income for the ERG group).