{"id":70298,"date":"2026-07-31T08:51:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T05:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/news\/kazzinc-cuts-gold-production-by-47-as-ore-grades-decline\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T09:02:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T06:02:45","slug":"kazzinc-cuts-gold-production-by-47-as-ore-grades-decline","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/news\/kazzinc-cuts-gold-production-by-47-as-ore-grades-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"Kazzinc Cuts Gold Production by 47% as Ore Grades Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kazakhstan-based mining and metallurgical company Kazzinc reported a sharp decline in precious and base metals production during the first half of the year. <a href=\"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/shorts\/gold-mining-countries-who-is-really-the-leader-in-the-world-ranking\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/shorts\/strany-po-dobyche-zolota-mirovoy-reyting-lidery-zolotodobychi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Gold<\/a> output from the company&#8217;s own ore fell by 47%, while production of zinc, lead, and copper also declined. Silver was the only major metal to record year-on-year growth.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The figures were published by inbusiness.kz, citing the half-year financial report of Glencore, Kazzinc&#8217;s majority shareholder. Gold production was hit particularly hard. Output from the company&#8217;s own ore dropped to 149,000 ounces, compared with 281,000 ounces in the same period last year\u2014a decline of nearly 50%. Total gold production, including material processed under tolling agreements, decreased by 36% to 311,000 ounces.   <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The company attributed the decline primarily to lower gold grades at the Altyntau Kokshetau operation following the transition to a new mining level. Production was also affected by the reconstruction of one of the site&#8217;s two concentrators, which temporarily reduced processing capacity. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zinc production fell 12% to 87,600 tonnes, while lead output declined 31% to 16,000 tonnes. Copper production decreased 4% to 7,400 tonnes. For both zinc and lead, the shortage of high-grade concentrates required for blending further constrained output.   <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Against this weaker overall performance, silver remained relatively resilient. Production increased 1% year-on-year to 1.666 million ounces.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kazzinc&#8217;s half-year results highlight a common challenge faced by mature <a href=\"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/what-prevents-new-deposits-from-being-discovered\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/chto-meshaet-otkryvat-novye-mestorozhdeniya\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mining operations<\/a>: declining ore grades combined with the need to modernize processing infrastructure. As the company navigates lower-grade ore and ongoing plant upgrades, shareholders are seeing double-digit declines across several of its key production indicators. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Source: inbusiness.kz<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Image: Kazzinc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kazakhstan-based mining and metallurgical company Kazzinc reported a sharp decline in precious and base metals production during the first half of the year. Gold output from the company&#8217;s own ore fell by 47%, while production of zinc, lead, and copper also declined. Silver was the only major metal to record year-on-year growth. The figures were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":70297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"Kazzinc Cuts Gold Production by 47% as Ore Grades Decline","_seopress_titles_desc":"Kazzinc's gold output from own ore fell to 149,000 ounces in the first half of the year. Learn how lower ore grades and a concentrator upgrade reduced production of gold, zinc, lead, and copper.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[549],"tags":[550,571],"class_list":["post-70298","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","category-mining","tag-gold-and-precious-metals","tag-non-ferrous-metals"],"acf":[],"pbg_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota.webp",1600,1067,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-150x100.webp",150,100,true],"medium":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-768x512.webp",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-1024x683.webp",1024,683,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-1536x1024.webp",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota.webp",1600,1067,false],"bricks_large_16x9":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-1200x675.webp",1200,675,true],"bricks_large":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-1200x800.webp",1200,800,true],"bricks_large_square":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-1200x1067.webp",1200,1067,true],"bricks_medium":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-600x400.webp",600,400,true],"bricks_medium_square":["https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/altyntau-kokshetau-dobycha-zolota-600x600.webp",600,600,true]},"pbg_author_info":{"display_name":"Yulia Frolova","author_link":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/author\/giulia-nikolaevna\/","author_img":false},"pbg_comment_info":" No Comments","pbg_excerpt":"Kazakhstan-based mining and metallurgical company Kazzinc reported a sharp decline in precious and base metals production during the first half of the year. Gold output from the company&#8217;s own ore fell by 47%, while production of zinc, lead, and copper also declined. Silver was the only major metal to record year-on-year growth. The figures were&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/70298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/70298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70299,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/70298\/revisions\/70299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geoconversation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}