Kemer Antimony Mine

The Kemer Antimony Mine is an underground stibnite mine in the Sary-Bulak District of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ), in the Talas Alatau foothills south-west of Talas, facing the Chatkal range, about 12 kilometers west of the main Sary-Bulak mine. It was opened in the 1970s under the 1971 Antimony Expansion Directive and is one of the satellite mines of the Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine. Ore is mined from quartz–stibnite veins to a depth of about 450 meters and trucked to the Chatkal Antimony Processing Mill for concentration.^[1] Its veins are lower in grade than those of Sary-Bulak, and the mine was idle from 1992 to 1997 before reopening when Chinese demand for concentrate revived.^[2] (See Antimony Mining in Irad.)

References

1. ^ Iradi Antimony and Rare Metals Combine (2024). Annual Report 2023. Talas.
2. ^ Talas State University Press (2016). Mining and Metallurgy in the Talas Valley from Shelji to Sary-Bulak. Talas.