Stepnoye Mining Directorate

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Around 1970 the Soviet Union began to explore and develop ISL deposits in southern Kazakhstan. By 1990, ISL methods had displaced open-pit and underground mining as the predominant uranium production method in southern Kazakhstan. Stepnoye Mining Directorate entered into production in 1978 at the Mynkuduk and Uvanas deposits. Uranium is extracted using a sulfuric acid leachate. ¹ During the Soviet era, material from Stepnoye and Tsentralnoye Mining Directorates was processed at the Kara Balta Ore Mining Combine in Kyrgyzstan. In 1993, Kazakhstan reduced the amount of material shipped to Kyrgyzstan and redirected most uranium ore shipments to its own facilities at the Tselinnyy Mining and Chemical Combine (now KazSabton) in Stepnogorsk. ² In the 1990s, output from Stepnoye fell from from 800t in 1991 to less than 600t as a result of falling world prices for uranium and US anti-dumping policies. ³ In 2000, the Directorate reported a 40% increase in productivity due to new pay incentives introduced at the mines. ⁴ Under a long-term contract, Nukem of Germany buys most of the uranium obtained from Stepnoye mines. ⁵

Stepnoye Mining Directorate mines deposits at Mynkuduk, Uvanas, Akdala and Zhalpak in Shymkent Oblast using the in-situ leaching (ISL) method. ^{6 7 8 9 10}