New iron foundry opens in Balkhash

Karaganda, 25 September 2008, (Khabar) - A new iron foundry has opened in Balkhash.

The implementation of this 655 million tenge project was the
result of cooperation between the National Investment Fund of Kazakhstan and
the Russian "Stalprojekt" Institute. The construction of the new metallurgy
plant took less than two years with the factory's unique oven having been
designed in accordance with a Russian project enabling the production of
cast iron from waste material avoiding the use of expensive agglomerate.

Nurlan Nigmatulin, Karaganda regional governor:
- Now, we have an opportunity to produce cast iron without using any
expensive agglomerate which enables us to reduce the cost of our output and
increase labour efficiency. This is one of the real and tangible
implementations of Kazakhstan's industrial and innovation strategy which was
approved by the president of our country, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Alexander Usachyov, general director, "Stalprojekt" (Moscow):
- This is an epoch-making event. Scientists from all over the word have been
searching for such technology for many years now and we have successfully
reached such an achievement.

The new plant's capacity is slightly over 30 thousand tonnes of cast iron
per year but specialists say an increase in production, if necessary, will
not require much investment and time. Another important advantage of the
plant is in its more ecologically friendly emissions compared with factories
using classical technology.