The joint laboratory's first three research topics cover pre-oxidation of refractory gold ores, heap leaching of low-grade material and tailings reprocessing, with results applied first across the Group's licence blocks.
On 8 April the Group and the Central Asian Mining and Metallurgical Engineering Institute signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Astana, attended by senior management and technical teams from both sides. As the Group's operating and development mines move into primary ore, the share of refractory material containing arsenic and carbon is rising, making processing and metallurgical capability a decisive variable for long-term recovery and cost. The agreement addresses precisely this question.
Three priorities are set out. The first is a comparison of pre-oxidation routes for refractory gold ore, with a systematic assessment of the economics of pressure oxidation and bio-oxidation under local energy and climate conditions. The second is heap leaching of low-grade oxide ore, focusing on crush size, irrigation regime and winter insulation. The third is tailings reprocessing, evaluating the recovery of gold, silver and copper from tailings and the use of tailings sand in backfill and construction materials.
The parties will establish a joint laboratory in Karaganda, with equipment installation and commissioning targeted before the end of 2026, alongside a pilot-scale test line. The agreement sets out topic approval, intellectual property ownership and the route to deployment: jointly generated patents are co-owned, the Group holds priority application rights across its own blocks, and the laboratory approves no fewer than three topics a year.
On people and standards, the parties will exchange technical staff each year for secondments of at least three months, jointly supervise master's students in processing and geology, and take part together in drafting Kazakhstani industry standards for processing and metallurgy. Cooperation is expected to extend further into mine digitalisation, predictive maintenance of equipment and automated control.
Resource, grade, capacity and investment figures in this article are stated on an interim basis; the Group's formal announcements and reviewed technical documents prevail.