Trial Operation Commences at the Altyn Tor Gold Mine Processing Plant in Kyrgyzstan
en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 15, the gold extraction plant at the Altyn Tor gold mine in Naryn Region, Kyrgyzstan, entered the trial operation phase. The project operator, Avelum Partner, is 60% owned by India's Deccan Gold Mines, with the remaining equity held by the Kyrgyz state-owned enterprise Кыргызалтын (Kyrgyzaltyn). During the trial operation, approximately 30,000 tonnes of ore are planned to be processed, with an average gold grade slightly above 1 g/t; once the plant reaches its design capacity, the ore processing scale is expected to increase to 1,000 tonnes per day.
The project had previously built a gravity separation system with an annual processing capacity of 100,000 tonnes of ore, and has now added a leaching system. In early August 2026, the project produced its first doré alloy using Altyn Tor ore: the ore first underwent gravity separation to form concentrate, then entered an intensive leaching system, where precious metals were recovered from the gold-bearing solution through the Merrill-Crowe process and smelted.
Deccan Gold Mines previously disclosed that the Altyn Tor processing system upgrade includes crushing, ball milling, gravity separation, leaching, thickening and filtration, electrowinning/smelting, as well as power supply and tailings facilities. Eleven conveyors have been commissioned, and the jaw and cone crushers have completed trial operation; the high-voltage power transmission line, substation equipment, and tailings storage facility are also part of the concurrent construction.
The Altyn Tor deposit is located in the Soltan Sary gold mineralization belt. Mineral resources published by Deccan Gold Mines show that, at a gold cut-off grade of 0.5 g/t, the project's mineral resources total approximately 4.65 million tonnes of ore, with an average gold grade of 1.21 g/t and contained gold of approximately 180,000 ounces; this includes approximately 1.4 million tonnes of tailings and low-grade stockpiled material, corresponding to approximately 51,000 ounces of gold.
Deccan Gold Mines' cumulative investment since entering the project has exceeded US$35 million. The company disclosed in 2025 that Avelum Partner holds the development and operating rights to the Altyn Tor project, and plans to expand the extractable resource base through expanding the processing system, lowering the cut-off grade, and continuing resource drilling.
