Key Development Projects

Over the past three years Kazchrome has made significant investments to increase production capacity, efficiency and reliability, as well as to repair and conduct maintenance of existing operations. Kazchrome continues to execute a robust operational improvement plan encompassing more than 180 initiatives. The Group is implementing major projects at the Aksu and Aktobe Ferroalloys Plants and at Donskoy GOK in order to further increase production volumes and develop the respective mineral resource base.

Most recent examples of key development initiatives include construction of Workshop #4 at the Aktobe Plant, renovating the Aksu Plant’s Workshop #6 and expanding the 10th Anniversary Mine.

Aktobe Workshop #4 is the world’s first large scale plant with closed DC electric furnaces. An innovative production facility, it was commissioned for construction in 2009 with first production achieved in 2014. One of the main objectives in commissioning the plant was to smelt fines without the need for a separate agglomeration phase, reducing both ongoing capital expenditures and operating costs.

The operation consists of furnaces and its own infrastructure (driveways, a shop for unloading and preparing burden material, a smelting shop, a ferrochrome crushing and fractionating plant, slag casting facilities, a processing shop, and gas cleaning facilities).

The plant is unrivalled in terms of its installed capacity and applied technologies.

The aim of the project is the reconstruction of four existing furnaces in workshop #6 of the Aksu ferroalloy plant to further increase the production of high-carbon ferrochrome while reducing operating costs and extending the life of the workshop. Reconstruction of furnaces began in 2017; Oven #64 was successfully launched in 2019.

The 10th Anniversary Mine has the potential to more than double its current production capacity. Upcoming development projects include the commissioning of the ventilation shaft in 2019 and the mine shaft in 2023.