Ivanhoe to develop gold producer in Central Asia

Robert Friedland, executive chairman of Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-T, IVN-N, IVN-Q), is channeling his energy into developing a pure gold company in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, and says he is in discussions with potential investors including established gold-industry players and sovereign- wealth funds that are interested in developing the Kyzyl gold project.

Friedland has upped Ivanhoe’s stake to 50% in Altynalmas Gold, a private company that owns 100% of the Kyzyl gold project in Kazakhstan, and plans to bring the project into commercial production soon. He will also seek a stock market listing for the company.

The Kyzyl project contains the Bakyrchik deposit, a large high-grade undeveloped system, and the nearby Bolshevik gold deposit. A drill program is underway to calculate a resource estimate and feasibility studies are slated to secure project financing.

The project is 100 km southwest of Ust-Kamenogorsk, the industrial centre of eastern Kazakhstan, the last of the former Soviet republics to declare independence in 1991.

Local infrastructure includes a railway and an electricity grid. Mine-site infrastructure includes underground workings and shafts.

Friedland said Altynalmas Gold is positioned to complete a prefeasibility study and advance with a full feasibility study.

And Ivanhoe has the experience to do it, Friedland added. In the last two years Ivanhoe has successfully listed two subsidiaries: coal deposits in southern Mongolia and the Cloncurry project’s mining assets in ustralia.

“SouthGobi Energy Resources and Ivanhoe Australia are models for what we are preparing to accomplish in positioning Altynalmas Gold as a major, long-term, pure gold producer,” Friedland outlined in a speech at the Asia Mining Congress in March.

Ivanhoe holds a 65% interest in Mongolian coal miner SouthGobi Energy Resources (SGQ-T) and an 81% interest in Ivanhoe Australia (IVA-A), a copper-gold-uranium-molybdenum- rhenium exploration and development company.

The Kyzyl gold system consists of a series of mineralized lenses, or lodes, lying within a large, 15-kmlong shear zone.

The geological potential remains untested along 13 km of strike and at depth.

At presstime in Toronto, Ivanhoe was trading at $17.16 apiece. The company has a 52-week trading range of $5.51-18.49 and 441.11 million shares outstanding.