ALMATY, Kazakhstan,
July 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/
-- IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced that it is working with
JSC Altyntau Resources, a leading gold producer in Kazakhstan, to provide a new business
analytics system to help the company to improve gold yields and
increase the profitability of its operations.
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The new system will enable the gold producer to centralize and
quickly analyze data about its mining operations. It includes a
dashboard of important information enabling the company's
management team to make informed decisions about which ore to mine
and which extraction processes to use to achieve the best return on
investment. Once the project is complete, JSC Altyntau Resources
will be able to speed up its annual financial planning cycle from
two months to two weeks and ensure that investors are kept informed
on the company's operations and forecasts.
JSC Altyntau Resources runs several mines in Kazakhstan, including the large Vasilkovskoye
gold ore deposit near the city of Kokshetau in the north of the
country. Though the deposit was first mined in the 1960s,
production had to be abandoned at various times over the years due
to the relatively low grade of the ore – only of 2.2 grams of gold
per tonne. However, the construction of a new gold recovery plant
in 2009 and the recent deployment of modern technologies have led
once again to full-scale, commercial production. Today,
Vasilkovskoye is one of the largest gold mines in the world.
"From the very moment of our company's inception, we set
ourselves the goal of becoming industry leaders by using the latest
technologies and approaches to increase gold yields, decrease
operational expenses and ensure maximum profitability," said
Kazhibekov Ilyas, Head of Planning and Financial Analysis at JSC
Altyntau Resources. "IBM's business analytics technologies will
give us the ability to quickly react to changes in gold production
and make informed decisions about our mining operations."
Kazakhstan, Central Asia's largest economy, is home to 4
percent of world gold deposits making it the seventh largest
reserve in the world. The Kazakh government plans to increase gold
production to 70 tonnes by 2015 – from 16.6 tonnes in 2011.
However, it is estimated that only 40 percent of Kazakhstan's gold reserves is economically
exploitable using current extraction technology, placing pressure
on gold mining companies to use the latest technologies to achieve
maximum yield.
"Business analytics systems help leaders understand and draw
valuable insights from the data within their organizations," said
Adam Dosymov, Head of IBM in Kazakhstan. "In the highly-competitive gold
mining industry this is crucial for effective cost management and
informed decision making. It can mean the difference between
whether your operations are commercially viable or not."
The implementation of the new system based on IBM Cognos
software will take place over several phases managed by IBM's local
business partner GMCS. The first phase covers the company's
financial planning processes in accordance with International
Financial Reporting Standards including assets, liabilities,
income, expense accounting and investments. The next stage will
include HR department planning and labor costs.
JSC Altyntau Resources was established in 2011 and employs over
4,200 people in gold mining and production. The Gold Recovery Plant
at the Vasilkovskoye deposit is the biggest gold mining asset of
the company constructed in accordance with world standards. The
plant is capable of processing up to 8 million tonnes of ore and
producing 550-650 koz of gold per annum.
IBM has a branch office in the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan. IBM recently announced the opening
of 10 new branch offices across Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) as part of a major initiative to capture regional
business growth and increase its presence in the fastest growing
markets in the world. The move is part of an incremental
investment of $6 million that IBM
will make in 2012 in the Russia
and CIS region to expand its operations and increase its footprint
to 22 offices. IBM will also double its staff in the Russian
regions and strengthen its business partner network across
Russia/CIS to over 4,000 partners
this year. IBM currently has branches in the following cities in
the region: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan,
Yekaterinburg, Perm, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Ufa, Khabarovsk, Tyumen,
Chelyabinsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Samara, Krasnodar, Kiev (Ukraine), Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine), Kharkiv (Ukraine), Donetsk (Ukraine), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan).
ABOUT JSC Altyntau Resources
For more information about JSC Altyntau Resources, please visit:
www.altyntau.com
ABOUT IBM
For more information on IBM, please visit:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/index.wss
For more information on IBM Growth Markets please visit:
https://twitter.com/#IBMGrowthMkts
CONTACTS
Alexandra Kisel
IBM Media Relations, R/CIS
+7 (985) 761 16 86
alex.kisel@ru.ibm.com
Anastasia Tolstopyatova
IBM Media Relations, R/CIS
+7 (985) 761 16 86
Anastasia.Tolstopyatova@ru.ibm.com
Jonathan Batty
IBM Media Relations, Growth Markets Unit
+ 48-693-93-5403
Jonathan.Batty@pl.ibm.com
SOURCE IBM