Russian-Kyrgyz fund to provide $40 mln to build hydropower plant for Jerooy gold mine

BISHKEK. Sept 12 (Interfax) - The Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund and Alliance Hydro LLC have signed an agreement on $40 million of financing to build the Jerooy hydropower plant in Kyrgyzstan's Talas region.

The agreement was signed during the 6th Kyrgyz-Russian Economic Forum.

Rosatom Central Asia performed a feasibility study in December 2022 for the plant, which will serve the Jerooy gold mine and other local consumers. The plant, capacity up to 28 MW, will generate up to 100 million kWh of electricity per year. Work on it should start in January 2025 and take until the second quarter of 2026, with commissioning due in the first quarter of 2027.

"Kyrgyzstan's energy system operates in such a way that all electricity is supplied to the general grid. The purpose of the new HPP is to reduce the energy deficit, including for the Talas region. The Alliance Altyn enterprise developing the Jerooy deposit is located there, and the electricity generated by the new HPP will also be supplied to the mine. Alliance Hydro is a standalone company but the HPP project is being implemented with help from Alliance Altyn, among others," Alexander Abramov, general director of Alliance Hydro, said at the signing ceremony.

Alliance Altyn LLC, controlled by Musa Bazhaev, was registered in 2015. It started to mine the Jerooy gold deposit in November 2019 and commissioned a recovery plant and tailings dump in March 2021. Overall investment in the gold project, including the open pit and deep mine and recovery plant, is an estimated $600 million. The recovery plant is capable of processing 1.3 million tonnes of ore per year.

The Jerooy deposit's gold and silver reserves, as approved by the Kyrgyz State Mineral Reserves Commission, are: commercial C1+C2 - 88,231 kg, non-commercial 17,322 kg Au; and commercial C2 - 24,349 kg and non-commercial 6,004 kg Ag.