DUSHANBE, September 21, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Increasing prices of precious metals, in particular gold, have given impulse to development of deposits that were remained undeveloped because of low content of metal in ore, according to the Ministry of Energy and Industries (MoEI).

“When the price of gold had not been so high and had been decreasing for a number of reasons, the Zeravshan Gold Company had been developing mainly the deposits with high content of gold in ore,” said the source at a MoEI, “Today, due to modernization this enterprise is increasing gold productions from month to month, basically owing to development of peripheral areas of the deposits.”

Over the first eight months of this year, the gold mining companies in Tajikistan have produced 1,070 kilograms of gold and 1,452 kilograms of silver, which is 355.3 and 589 kilograms respectively more than in the same period last year, the source added.

According to him, the Zeravshan Gold Company accounted for more than 50 percent of the overall amount of gold produced in the country over the report period.  “In January-August 2010, the Zeravshan Gold Company has produced 607 kilograms of gold, which is 307 kilograms more than over the same period of 2009,” the source said.

In the meantime, JV Aprelevka has produced 282 kilograms of gold and Tilloi Tojik has produced 159 kilograms of gold over the report period.

Tajikistan reportedly has 28 known gold deposits containing an estimated 429.3 tons of gold.  The country now produces on average 1,600 kilograms of gold per year, most of which comes from the Jilau deposit operated by the Zeravshan Gold Company (Tajik-Chinese gold-mining joint venture, located in Sughd province).

The other two gold producers are the gold-mining enterprise, Tilloi Tojik (formerly JV Darvaz), which produces gold from its alluvial operation at the Yakhsou deposit, located in Khatlon province in southern Tajikistan, and Tajik-Canadian gold-mining joint venture, Aprelevka, which is engaged in mining and processing of ores at Aprelevka, Qyzyl-Cheku, Burgunda, Ekiljon and other small deposits in northern Tajikistan (Sughd province).