Product

The productive capacity of the company allows production of two types of blister copper - Class A, with higher content of gold and silver, and Class B, with relatively low content of gold and silver. The main input for production of Class A blister copper is copper concentrate, the supply capacity of which had the following structure in 2011 (january-september).

• Base Metals cjsc – 55 %
• Zangezour CMC cjsc – 45 %

Class A blister copper has the following characteristics:

 

Cu	min. 98.5%
Ag	up to 300 gr/t
Au	up to 150 gr/t
As	max. 0.020%
Bi	max. 0.010%
Pb	max. 0.050%
Ni	max. 0.025%
Sb	max. 0.010%
Te	max. 0.010%
Se	max. 0.050%
S	max. 0.050%

The product used for producing Class B blister copper (re-smelted secondary copper) is basically copper scrap, which is purchased domestically. Copper content in Class B blister copper is minimum 98.5 %, while silver and gold content could be up to 140 gr/t and 4 gr/t respectively. Productive capacities of the company allow smelting of copper scrap in a much more volume than what is currently being purchased domestically, but administrative barriers in neighboring countries have so far impeded the company from purchasing and importing copper scrap from those countries. Based on that fact in 2003 the company was forced to suspend the operation of the smelting furnace used for copper scrap smelting, and use relatively small volumes of scrap available for converter smelting.