Chaarat Gold Holdings Ltd’s (LON:CGH) Turkish mining contractor has begun deploying equipment at the Tulkubash gold deposit in the Kyrgyz Republic.
The AIM-listed mining firm said the contractor’s initial operations would focus on the construction of temporary and permanent camps to house workforces, a temporary maintenance shop, a five-kilometre haul road between the mine and process facilities, the Kumbel pass-to-site portion of the access road, and the initial clearing and grubbing of the heap leach pad area.
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Chaarat said these activities were expected to lead to full-scale construction of the Tulkubash Heap Leach Project in the second quarter of 2019.
The firm added that designs for the heap leach facility had been finalised and an application for regulatory approval from the Kyrgyz authorities was being compiled.
Key positions for the construction team were also being filled to execute an integrated team delivery approach, whereby Chaarat project management would be supplemented with strategic engineering support from outside the company to form the project delivery team.
The remaining construction costs for the project are estimated to be US$130mln.
Chaarat also said that over the summer it had completed an access road from the Chatkal valley to the top of Kumbel pass, a haul road over the Sandalash river, and communications infrastructure for the mine during construction and production.
Robert Benbow, chief operating officer at Chaarat, said the mobilisation of the contractor was “a major step” in the project and the firm’s growth strategy, with first gold expected near the end of 2020.