The Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet on Thursday decided to enhance the production of Saindak copper and gold project in Balochistan by 30 percent through an additional investment of $22 million. The Chinese company, which resuscitated the dormant project last year, has offered to undertake the expansion work. The Chinese company MRDL is a subsidiary of Metallurgical Construction Company of China. The company had invested $26 million since August 2003.
Since the commissioning of the project in August last year, the company produced 18,000 tonnes blister till September 2004 and paid $2 million to the Government of Pakistan.
Briefing newsmen about the ECC decision, Professor Ashfaq Hassan Khan said that before the Chinese company took over the project, the country had sunk billions of rupees because the project was not held viable.
Saindak copper gold project was completed by Saindak Metals Limited (SML), a public limited company wholly owned by the Government of Pakistan, by the end of 1995 at a cost of Rs 13.5 billion. It was financed through the Government of Pakistan investment .and GOP guaranteed borrowings.
The installed project facilities consist of open pit mine, concentrator and reverberatory furnace smelter with a capacity to annually produce 15,800 tonnes of blister copper containing 1.5 tonnes of gold and 2.8 tonnes of silver.
On the infrastructure side, 50MW power house, 35km railway spur to the main line and a township for 1,300 employees have been constructed. An underground water reservoir 39km away from the project has also been developed for supply of 30,000 tonnes per day of industrial water to the project.
The project was put on trial production during August 1995 to January 1996 and it achieved the designed production capacity and quality. It produced 1,541 tonnes of blister copper containing 12kg gold and 198kg silver during the trial operations which was sold in the international market at London Metal Exchange prices for refined metals minus the refining deduction and charges.
The project was shut down in February 1996 due to lack of working capital. The efforts were, however, continued to commence regular production.
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