Name: Kumtor mine.

Location: The Kumtor mine is located in the Kyrgyz Republic, about 350 km to the south-east of Bishkek and about 60 km to the north of the international boundary with China.
Controlling Company: Centerra Gold.

Brief History: The Kumtor deposit was discovered in 1978. Intensive exploration, adit sampling, drilling and geological interpretation work was undertaken from 1979 to 1989, culminating in an initial reserve statement issued by the USSR State Committee on Reserves in March 1990. Cameco Gold International company concluded an agreement with the Kyrgyz Republic regarding the project in 1992 and retained a third-party consultant to undertake a feasibility study on the project. A feasibility study on the Kumtor deposit was submitted by Cameco subsidiary Kumtor Operating Company in 1993. Construction and development began in 1994 and was completed in early 1997, with commercial production starting in the second quarter of that year. In 2004, Kyrgyzaltyn – a joint-stock company wholly owned by the Kyrgyz Republic – and Cameco Gold sold the Kumtor mine to Centerra, which now wholly owns the project.
Brief Description: Kumtor is one of the largest gold mines in Central Asia. The mine comprises the Central deposit, often called the Central pit or Kumtor pit, and the smaller Sarytor and Southwest satellite deposits.

Products: Gold.

Geology/Mineralisation: The Kumtor mine deposits occur in the middle Tien Shan metallogenic belt – a Hercynian fault and thrust belt in Central Asia that extends from Uzbekistan in the west through Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic into north-western China – and host several important gold deposits, among them Muruntau, Zarmitan, Jilau and Kumtor.
The mine geology is dominated by several major thrust sheets and fault zones, which strike north-easterly and dip to the south-east at varying, but moderate angles. Each thrust sheet (zone) contains older rocks than the sheet it structurally overlies. The zone hosting the gold mineralisation comprises metasediments of Vendian age (youngest Proterozoic or oldest Palaeozoic) that are strongly folded and schistose. In most areas, the Kumtor fault zone (KFZ) – a dark-grey to black graphitic gouge and schist zone – forms the footwall of this structural segment. The KFZ has a width of up to 700 m. The adjacent rocks in its hanging wall are strongly affected by folding, shearing and faulting up to several hundred metres. The rocks in the structural footwall of the KFZ are Cambro-Ordovician limestone and phyllite, thrust over Tertiary sediments of possible continental derivation that, in turn, rest with apparent unconformity on Carboniferous clastic sediments.
Gold mineralisation occurs where the Vendian sediments have been hydrothermally altered and mineralised, an event that has been dated as late Carboniferous to early Permian. Gold minerali- sation is developed at varying intensities over a distance of more than 12 km, with the Central deposit being the most important.

Reserves: Proven and probable reserves from the Central, Southwest and Sarytor deposits, including stockpiles, as at December 31, 2014, were 68.5-million tonnes, grading 2.8 g/t of gold. Based on these mineral reserves, the openpit life-of-mine plan has been updated, with openpit mining to continue to 2023 and milling operations concluding in 2026.
Resources: Measured and indicated resources from the Central, Southwest and Sarytor deposits as at December 31, 2014, were 29.5-million tonnes, grading 3 g/t of gold. Inferred resources were estimated at 2.7-million tonnes, grading 1.5 g/t of gold.

Mining Method: Conventional openpit mining.

Major Infrastructure and Equipment: Blast holes are drilled using six diesel-powered Sandvik DR-460 rigs and two Drilltech D55SP rotary-percussion drill rigs, with a hole diameter of 300 mm. Charging the holes is undertaken by special bulk explosives trucks delivering either ammonium nitrate with fuel oil or emulsion explosives for wet holes.

The main loading fleet operating at the end of 2014 consisted of five Hitachi 3600 shovels, nine Liebherr 9350 hydraulic shovels and one CAT 5130 B hydraulic shovel. The main haulage fleet operating at the end of 2014 comprised 71 CAT 789 haul trucks and 32 CAT 785 haul trucks.

Prospects: Centerra is continuing discussions with the Kyrgyz Republic about possibly restructuring the Kumtor project. The country’s Parliament passed a resolution on June 29, 2015, to ensure the continued operation of the Kumtor mine, conduct an examination of the updated life-of-mine plan and the mine’s impact on the Kyrgyz Republic.

On September 21, 2015, Kumtor received approval from the State Agency for Environmental Protection and Forestry to continue to mine ore according to the 2015 annual mine plan.

Contact Person: VP investor relations John Pearson.

Contact Details:
Centerra Gold,
tel +1 416 204 1953,
fax +1 416 204 1954, and
email info@centerragold.com or john.pearson@centerragold.com.