If Kazakhstan is the awakening giant of the mineral resources world, then perhaps it is much smaller southern neighbour Uzbekistan that is looming next on the Eurasian horizon. At least that is a view that emerged from a recent tour of both countries by a group of Australian mining services and technology companies.

From a major miner’s perspective, too, Uzbekistan is recognised as being under-explored, particularly using modern exploration methods, and highly prospective for large copper deposits and other mineral resources.

Rio Tinto, which jointly hosted the first ever official international industry delegation, led by AUSTMINE, to visit Uzbekistan, described the country’s investment climate as favourable, its economic and political settings as stable, and its mining culture as strong with a high level of technical competency and understanding of the “importance of innovation”.

There was “enormous geological potential, particularly for areas remote from existing mining operations and under cover”.

Meetings co-ordinated by AUSTMINE, which represents more than 120 of Australia’s leading mining equipment, technology and services (METS) companies, and the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Geology and Mineral Resources (Goskomgeologia), and several site visits also “confirmed [the] earlier impression that the Uzbek organisations and enterprises work at a high technical level and are well supported by the Uzbek government. The Uzbek organisations are potential customers for the members of AUSTMINE in specific fields of advanced technologies”.

Rio Tinto has since hosted a reciprocal visit by Uzbekistan Government mining-sector representatives to Australia, while AUSTMINE and Goskomgeologia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding confirming a joint commitment to share technology developments and information on supply opportunities, meet regularly.

“Uzbekistan has significant reserves of copper, lead, zinc, tungsten and uranium, all of which are all increasingly being developed,” said AUSTMINE executive officer Robert Trzebski, who led the Australian delegation.

“Uzbekistan is also the seventh largest producer of gold, and has one of the largest openpit gold mines in the world. All mining activities are conducted by state-owned organisations and controls the industry.

Both sides recognised the need for stronger commercial relationships and the need for cooperation. Given the resources potential in Uzbekistan and interest in upgrading their technology to remain globally competitive, Australian suppliers have a lot to offer.”

Brett Morgan, business development manager for RME Mill Relining Systems and AUSTMINE director, has visited Kazakhstan numerous times but was on his first trip to Uzbekistan.

“My first impressions of Uzbekistan are that of a country with a lot of development potential and also some world leading technologies that have been developed in-country, especially in the area of ISL [insitu leaching],” he said.

“As a rule the mine sites are very well set up, with competent machining workshops and European and Russian tooling machinery with the capability to produce large-scale components.

“From the Australian METS sector perspective, the CIS region widely recognises the quality and performance of Australian METS. It is a message that is repeatedly delivered to me on many of my trips to this region.”

Morgan said as with other Eurasian markets, and Russia itself, recognition from relevant Uzbekistan government departments was “crucial for anyone entering the mining community”.

“I can only compliment the government on their organisation of the mission and how professionally it was handled,” he said. “As a delegate I was also extremely impressed by the hospitality of the Uzbek mining companies.”

Morgan repeated the observation of other visitors when he noted that while mining was already one of the largest contributors to Uzbekistan GDP, global demand for copper, uranium and coal would be a key macro driver of more exploration and project development in the country.

“I understand there is a distinct need for exploratory drilling rigs,” he said.
Marcus Lake, global accounts manager – international mining group, with Olympus Innov-X, has already seen take-up of the company’s XRF mineral analysers in Uzbekistan, with Goscomgeology using early models. The delegation heard that the latest XRF models might also be used in a collaborative research program involving Goscomgeology and Rio Tinto.

“I thought Uzbekistan was an amazing country with plenty of mining potential,” Lake said.

“We are already selling our equipment to most of the government bodies that we visited, so they can see the value in our equipment. I think that they will open their minds to world’s best practice and where and if possible adopt some of these processes.”

While Uzbekistan continues to work through policy and regulatory changes to broaden its international appeal to investors of foreign capital, “Kazakhstan is obviously a totally different situation, and this is why they are the envy of all of the other Stan countries”, an Austmine delegate observed.

After Uzbekistan, the Austmine delegation travelled to Almaty, Kazakhstan, to exhibit at Mining World Central Asia 2011.

Lindsay Clark, general manager of Xstrata Technology, said many base metal project expansions were underway in Kazakhstan, which hosts some of the world’s major copper, zinc, uranium and gold deposits. “Both green field and brown field projects are currently being developed,” he said. “Some very big projects will be going online within three years.”

Clark even compared activity levels in Kazakhstan to current global mineral investment hotspot, Turkey.

“The main difference is the size of the deposits, which are much smaller in Turkey,” he said.

Clark said there was broad appreciation of, and increasing demand for, Australian mining and mineral processing know-how and technology.

“We know for a fact that some companies have asked for western standards in metal accounting for example, and will be visiting Australian installations to learn about the applications used,” he said.

“[We had] a lot of success with the Australian stand at the Mining World 2011 in Almaty. They seem to appreciate Australian technologies and know-how.”
Specific opportunities for the application of Australian technologies and expertise included many old concentrators that were currently being expanded and going through a modernisation process.

“So the opportunities reside in process optimisation (control systems), flow sheet designs (engineering) , equipment supply (technology companies), safety improvement (companies that specialise in training) and mineral processing research,” Clark said.

“Many of the concentrators I have seen are old, dating from the Soviet era, hence there are lots of opportunities.”