CHAGAI: The Saindak Copper-Gold Project has generated a profit of $74.71 million by collecting revenue of $550,000 against 16,426 tonnes of blister copper out of 5 million tonnes of concentrating tasks during last year.

This was disclosed on Friday by chairman of the Metallurgical Construction Corporation (MCC) Resources Development (Pvt) Limited (MRDL), He Xuping.

He said that taking advantage of the rising prices in the international metal market his company carefully organised production and achieved its annual target despite repeated boiler bursts while combating the coronavirus pandemic as well.

“Over the past 19 years of operation we have been making steady profits and have paid over $468m in taxes, fees and profits to the governments of Pakistan and Balochistan and the owner and created more than 1,900 jobs, procured about of various production and living materials worth $1.1 billion and contributed to the development of local trade, transportation, logistics and other industries and provided the livelihood to thousands of families in the surrounding areas,” Mr Xuping explained in a press release.

MRDL chief says company achieved annual target despite repeated boiler bursts

He said his company spent about $100,000 annually to provide safe and sanitary water for about 3,000 villagers, the Frontier Corps, the armed forces and police.

The MRDL chairman said that since 2005, the company had invested nearly $800,000 to install electricity transmission facilities and provide free electricity to six nearby villages. He said in face of the continued impact of the epidemic with the support of the Pakistani government and all sectors of society, the company insisted on “people-oriented” solutions and continued to follow the epidemic prevention requirements of the Pakistani government by investing $1.98 million in epidemic prevention and control throughout the year.

Mr He said the MRDL successfully achieved the perfect achievement of no virus transmission within the company, no villagers getting infected in the surrounding area, no cases imported by Chinese employees back home and production maintaining efficient operation.

“The Saindak School, which is operated with an annual contribution of nearly $100,000 has been upgraded to the first local high school in order to promote the cultivation of talents.”

When the epidemic was rampant in 2020, the company and the Pakistani side stood by each other and overcame the hardships together donating Rs43m worth of supplies to the Balochistan government to fight against the epidemic and raised Rs17.5m worth of food and oil for 3,312 poor families in the surrounding areas to relieve the hardships of the local masses, Mr Xuping added.

“The main ore body for MRDL to mine in the next lease term is east ore body where ore grade and gold content have dropped significantly as compared to the previous one and the company will have to earn a small profit or even incur loss. From the current situation of the ore grade of the east ore body, it takes 328 tonnes of ore to produce one tonne of blister copper while it was only 283 tonnes from the south ore body. Meanwhile, the cost of production each tonne of crude copper increases by $340 due to the poor ore properties of the east ore body. In addition, due to the relatively low gold grade of the east ore body, the value of each tonne of crude copper produced is lower than that of the south ore body by $2,952 which is a 30 per cent reduction,” he explained.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2022