Chief geologist of the company Aurora Minerals Group Kent Balas reported an interest of the foreign specialists and companies to our country saying that Kazakhstan is located in the complicated geology area, and has a lot of mineral deposits. On the VIII International Mining and Metallurgy Congress, he has shared his views on the situation in the sector and on actions for the attraction of investors.
He thinks that, participation of only a few large, medium and small mining companies in the Kazakhstan mining sector leads to the unhealthy competition and inadequate extraction of mineral resources.
Ideally, according to Mr. Balas’s opinion, the distribution of forces in the market should be similar to a pyramid, the base of which will accommodate small companies that will be conducting early stage exploration and selling their projects to the mediumsized companies, and those, in turn, will further develop the projects and sell them to to large companies
Large companies are more stable and can withstand a lot of risks.The large companies should support the emergence of Junior exploration companies as ultimately it will give the large companies more options for future development projects.
Small companies - the cornerstone of the entire industry. Though, Chief geologist of the Aurora Minerals Group company thinks that, for their entry into the market there are many barriers.
The complex regulatory regime is the main barrier after the high temporal and financial costs on geological exploration activities. Example: in Kazakhstan were issued about 500 licenses for subsoil use, when in Australia - about 26 thousand.
It is needed a higher level of disclosure of geological data and creating online geological databases in order to attract investors to the industry. Such kind of databases should be free and available to the general public online. In order to explore deposits, Kazakhstan specialists could successfully adapt some modern geophysical tools.
Kent Balas mentioned positive tendency: Kazakhstan has already begun to move in this direction. An interactive map that allows investors to see the valuable mineral deposits on country’s land has already been created.
The next step is the recognition of the identified resources by stock exchanges. If this is done, investors will surely come to Kazakhstan and there will be an opportunity to earn good money on mineral exploration
According to Kent Balas, the national program of development of the industry, which is being developed now, will enable our country to achieve good results, including the exploration sector as well:
“There is a widespread belief within the industry, that everything that was possible to find, has already been found during the Soviet Union. I would like to note that this is not so. Not all exploration works were complited/carried out during the Soviet Union, there is much more to be found. There are huge opportunities in Kazakhstan and there will be a boom of exploration!” – thinks Kent Balas.
