METAL PRINCE EXPANDS ACTIVITY

[MosJan]

METAL PRINCE EXPANDS ACTIVITY

A Romanian Metal Prince company had been planning to start negotiating with the Armenian government on joint running of the ore mining and processing enterprise in the northern Armenian town of Akhtala still in 1999 September, but they were delayed after an attack on the parliament the following month. The negotiations resumed earlier this year and had a successful end, following which the company invested $940,000 to repair and update some of the facilities of the plant. Until now the company’s output was some 450 tons of copper concentrate with a high, 20-25 percentage of copper. The Armenian representative of the company Serob Ter-Poghosian says though the quality of the copper can compete with production of other smelters, the volumes are still low. The plant had to halt the operation for one week because of energy debts.

 

 

He said the company has designed a new plan of investments in the plant, which consists of two stages, the first is worth $2 million 700,000, of which $1 million 200,000 will be used for starting exploitation of Shamlough mines with a purpose of mining some 300,000 tons of ore annually. The rest of the money will go for installment of the second production cycle to make it uninterrupted. Successful implementation of this scheme will increase the number of workers to 800 from current 500. The wages of the workers are relatively high, ranging from $150 to $300 monthly.

 

 

In the second stage $7 million 300,000 of the total $10 million, projected as investments, will be directed to exploitation of other mines, which contain gold, silver and other precious metals, which will be processed by a new plant, to be constructed in Stepanavan. All these plans are foreseen to be fulfilled in the next four years, but before passing to the second stage the company has proposed buying the company out. The business plan of the company will be submitted to the government December 25, which, in all likelihood, will sell the plant next January.

 

 

By Ara Martirosian

 

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