A Chinese-Tajik antimony and gold mining joint venture has postponed its start-up until mid-2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and now plans to begin commercial production by next October, Tajik state metals firm Talco said this week.
Talco Gold, jointly owned by Talco and China's Tibet Huayu Mining Co, planned to start producing antimony, a metal used in batteries and fire retardants, from the Konchoch deposits in western Tajikistan in March 2020.
But the Central Asian nation and China then closed the bilateral border due to the pandemic, preventing the movement of equipment and workforce needed to complete the project.
Company chief executive Li Feng told reporters it expected to have all the equipment in place by the end of this year and spend the next few months testing it.
The venture plans to produce up to 21 000 t of antimony and 2.5 t of gold per year.