Druzhba Mining is preparing the Druzhba titanium-zirconium deposit in the Pavlodar Region for industrial development. The company plans to mine by open-pit method, with an estimated pit life of ten years, according to infohub.kz.
Details are contained in materials for public hearings on the mining plan. They are scheduled for early November.
The deposit is located in two districts of the Pavlodar Region at once – May and Bayanaul. No industrial mining has been conducted here before. Development is planned within a single open pit without drilling and blasting.
The project envisages mining up to 1.5 million tonnes of ore annually. This volume is planned to be maintained for most of the operational period. In the tenth year, the figure is to decline to 335,000 tonnes.
The deposit area is divided into four sections: "A", "B", "Vostochny" and "Yuzhny". Work is to begin from the western part of section "A" in the May district. According to the plan, the ore sands lie above the groundwater level and are not water-bearing.
The bulk of the reserves is concentrated in sections "A" and "B". They account for almost 66% and 80% of conditional ilmenite reserves, as well as 70% and 75% of conditional zircon, depending on the industrial minimum applied in the calculation.
In the documentation, the deposit is classified as large. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) reserves, depending on the calculation, are estimated at 1.019–1.239 million tonnes, and zirconium dioxide (ZrO2) at 612,000–758,000 tonnes.
The area of the priority development zone is 2.47 sq km. The 13.8 million tonnes of ore in this section contain 60,600 tonnes of ilmenite and 146,300 tonnes of zircon. The average content of these minerals in section "A" is estimated at 4 and 8.3 kg per tonne, respectively. Across the entire deposit, the averages are 5.2 and 8.9 kg per tonne.
To launch mining, Druzhba Mining expects to invest about 1.9 billion tenge of its own funds. Of this, 1.2 billion tenge is planned for mining and transport equipment, and another 707 million tenge for working capital.
Over ten years of operation, total revenue is projected at about 24.1 billion tenge. By the end of the estimated period, accumulated net profit should reach 1.2 billion tenge.
Druzhba Mining was registered in December 2024. The company's sole participant is the private company TZ Group Ltd, registered in Astana. At the end of 2025, the company employed nine people.
According to its charter documents, Druzhba Mining is engaged in the exploration, extraction and processing of solid minerals, as well as geological exploration.
It was previously reported that Druzhba Mining plans to build a titanium-zirconium concentrate plant in the May district of the Pavlodar Region. The project cost is estimated at more than 27 billion tenge. Once at full capacity, the plant will be able to produce over 77,000 tonnes of product annually and create about 200 jobs.
According to open registers, the owners of TZ Group Ltd are Ilya Ivakhov and the company Alphatech Investments. Information about the ultimate owners of the latter is not disclosed in Kazakh databases – the company is registered abroad.