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Kazakhstan is reportedly squandering its valuable gold resources, failing to utilize its rich underground wealth effectively. Despite modern technologies offering ways to extract value even from waste materials, the nation continues to lose precious metals.

Experts Sound the Alarm on Gold Waste

Nizami Jafarov, an expert at the Qazaq Expert Club and an Honored Geologist of Kazakhstan, is urging the country to reconsider its approach to resource management. While many nations focus on maximizing extraction from existing sites, Kazakhstan is still treating valuable minerals as waste, leading to significant losses.

Historical Inefficiencies and Modern Missed Opportunities

Historically, only ores with a gold content of at least two grams per ton were considered viable for extraction. However, current technologies allow for the recovery of gold from rock with as little as 0.4–0.5 grams per ton. Despite this advancement, these opportunities are frequently overlooked, leaving valuable ores buried underground.

Jafarov highlighted the Zhetigara gold deposit in the Kostanay region, which was exploited intermittently for nearly 50 years. During its operation, the average gold content in the extracted ore was 7–10 grams per ton, well above the minimum three grams per ton considered industrial. Astonishingly, even materials with up to three grams of gold per ton in the surrounding rock were not deemed promising and were instead used for purposes like road construction.

Untapped Gold in Waste Piles

The environmental waste from the Zhetigara deposit alone still contains over a ton of gold, representing a massive, effectively wasted resource.

Systemic Losses in Resource Extraction

According to Jafarov, Kazakhstan loses resources even during the initial assessment of deposits. Typically, only 60-80% of all minerals in a deposit are classified as potential resources. Of this amount, only 70-90% is actually extracted. Furthermore, up to 30% of the ore can be lost during the processing stage. Consequently, less than half of Kazakhstan's abundant underground resources are ultimately recovered.

Modern technologies offer a path to significantly reduce these losses. Experts advocate for focusing on lower-grade ores and tailings (processing waste), from which valuable resources can still be extracted or preserved for future processing.

"It is crucial to consider not only the volume of resources lost during mining operations but also the economic efficiency," Jafarov emphasized.

Previously, reports emerged about an attempted theft of gold ore from the "Akbakay" deposit in the Zhambyl region.

This information was reported by the Infohub.kz news agency.