So far, Russian Copper Company has invested $210m into its joint venture with Kazakhmys Corporation set up for the development of Koktausskoye deposit (named in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution) in Kazakhstan, reports their spokesperson.

The opening ceremony of a processing plant at the deposit took place on September 7, 2006. The ore mining and processing enterprise located there now includes an open-cast mine, a processing plant that mainly deals in ore concentrate, and a plant that produces cubic-shaped chips from the overburden. The construction of this complex involved the input of the world’s leading mining equipment producers such as Outokumpu (Finland), Dobersek (Germany), Warman (the United Kingdom), Caterpiller SARL (Switzerland and the USA), Terex Company GMBH (Germany, the USA, and the United Kingdom), Sandvik (Sweden). The ore mining and processing enterprise is expected to process 2.5m tons of ore a year.

The next stage of deposit development includes construction of the second processing plant, which will raise the annual output to up to 4.5m tons of ore. The total amount of investments into this project is estimated at $180m. The plant will be using ore from Vessenne-Aralachinskoye and Priorskoye deposits. Russian Copper Company has been setting up a mine at the first deposit, located within 30 km of Koktausskoye deposit; this mine is to produce at least .5m of copper-zinc ore a year; the investments are expected to amount to $50m, with the launch of the facility scheduled for 2009.

This means that the total investments of Russian Copper Company into developing Kazakhstan deposits will come to something like $440m, reports their spokesperson.