BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 10. Uzbekistan’s
Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine (AMMC) plans to increase
copper production up to 500,000 tons by 2030, the Chairman of the
Board of Directors of AMMC Abdulla Khursanov told Trend in an
exclusive interview.
“In the medium term, AMMC plans to implement a number of
projects to expand the raw material base by developing new deposits
of non-ferrous and precious metals in the Tashkent region. These
are sites at the Almalyk and Angren ore fields. Prospects of
processing of technogenic wastes generated during the whole period
of the plant’s activity are also being studied. These wastes also
contain non-ferrous and precious metals, which can be extracted on
the basis of modern technologies. In general, all these promising
projects are aimed at achieving the target parameters for copper,
gold, and silver production,” he said.
The Chairman of the Board also noted that the AMMC is working on
the development of a new copper smelting complex. It is expected
that the completion of the complex, which will significantly
increase the production capacity of the company, will take place in
2027. The new complex aims to expand the existing copper cathode
production capacity from 148,000 tons to 300,000 tons per year.
“The project is being implemented on the territory of the
existing complex and is divided into several main facilities:
metallurgical and sulfuric acid shop, oxygen block, slag-enrichment
plant, concentrate storage and charge preparation, copper
electrolysis shop, power supply system of the new plant, and
infrastructure,” Khursanov noted.
According to him, today contractors for metallurgical and
sulfuric acid shops, oxygen blocks, and internal power supply
facilities have already been determined. Contracts have been signed
in these areas, and financing has been opened.
“The project is being realized with the active financial support
of KfW IPEX Bank and AKA Bank. KfW has assumed the role of
organizer of financing, including the creation of a syndicate of
banks, which allows effective coordination of international
cooperation,” he said.
The chairman of the plant said that within the first stage of
the development of the deposit ‘Yoshlik I’ investment project,
Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine is completing the
construction of copper processing plant No. 3, with an ore
processing capacity of 60 million tons per year, as well as its
infrastructure facilities.
Abdulla Khursanov also highlighted that one of the most
important steps for AMMC is the start of construction of the fourth
copper concentrator, which will allow processing another 60 million
tons of ore per year and increase the total volume of processing up
to 160 million tons. The introduction of new technologies, such as
the use of 18.4 MW grinding mills and a tailings thickening system,
will significantly reduce operating costs and increase production
efficiency. Project solutions also include feeding ore for medium
crushing by separate independent lines, eliminating the need to
build large feed hoppers; increasing the gravity concentrator cycle
feed to 50 percent of the hydrocyclone feed flow, which will
increase metal recovery at the initial stages of beneficiation and
reduce operating costs at subsequent operations; and building the
plant halls in a cascade layout without retaining walls, which will
allow gravity to be used to transport pulp through the process.
“To date, the technological regulations have been developed,
layouts of the general plan of the plant with the location of the
main process shops have been prepared, the development of working
documentation for earthwork has begun, and a report on research and
development work on ore beneficiation has been developed. The raw
material base of MOF-3 and MOF-4 is the Yoshlik I deposit,” he
said.
“Digital transformation is one of the priority areas of our
work. It is not just the introduction of new technologies, but a
global rethinking of the approach to business in order to increase
efficiency through optimization and automation of business
processes. In 2022-2024, we signed more than 20 cooperation
agreements with international companies such as Siemens, SAP
(Germany), AVEVA and Datamine (UK), Schneider Electric (France),
and many others. As a result, we have realized more than 60
projects,” the Chairman of the Board noted.
He emphasized that AMMC is also actively automating production
processes. For example, the installation and launch of 27 strain
gauge conveyor scales was completed at the copper processing plant,
which increased the accuracy of ore measurement to 99.8 percent.
The installation of instrumentation and assembly of control
cabinets was carried out at 7 monosections, improving efficiency by
2 percent and reducing reagent consumption by 5 percent. Work was
also organized at the smelter to ensure uninterrupted management of
systems and instrumentation. The implementation of an automation
system at the sulfuric acid warehouse reduced the time of tanker
loading by 20 percent.
Abdulla Khursanov emphasized that to further improve efficiency,
the combine is also introducing new control systems for
transportation activities. For example, using GPS and fuel
monitoring for more than 2,000 vehicles, transport operations have
been significantly improved, and an automated fuel and lubricant
accounting system has been introduced, saving 23,600 tons of diesel
fuel between 2022 and 2023.
“We continue to improve our processes. In recent years, the main
focus has been on improving our accounting processes and data
consolidation. The AMMC is actively developing analytical tools
using Big Data technologies and BI systems such as Power BI, which
allows us to make management decisions promptly. The company is not
going to stop at what has been achieved and sets ambitious goals to
bring the coverage of business processes by IT solutions to 98
percent by the end of 2027,” he added.
