Company owned by a Chinese citizen to search for rare metals in Kazakhstan

Brother Gold, a company controlled by Chinese citizen Huang Ling, plans to conduct geological exploration for solid minerals at the Kerimbek deposit in the Zhetysu region.

«Under this work, the company’s workers will clean previously completed mine workings manually (640 cubic meters) and drill an additional 2,000 linear meters of wells… The work will be carried out during the period from 2025 to 2027 in the warm season (seasonal work from Apr. 1 to Oct. 31),» the company said in a statement.

The total exploration area the company will operate in is 29 square kilometers. The Kerimbek deposit is located in the Kerbulak district of the Zhetysu region. Drilling will be conducted in promising areas to trace already known ore zones and assess their ore content at depth. Wells will be drilled at depths of 50 and 100 meters. Electricity for the site is expected to be provided by a diesel-powered drilling rig generator, which may consume approximately 54.2 tons of fuel during the operational period.

Brother Gold was registered in Almaty on May 30, 2023, with its core activity listed as the mining of precious metals and rare metal ores. The sole owner of the company is Huang Ling, a citizen of China.

China is the world’s largest supplier of rare and rare earth metals. In particular, Europe receives 90% of such metals from China. Therefore, the European Union has been promoting a cooperation program with Kazakhstan for so-called critical materials (lithium, titanium, cobalt and other metals needed for the production of electric vehicles and dual-use goods). This program aims to allow European companies to obtain new contracts for the exploration and production of such metals in Central Asia.

In 2023, EU Ambassador Kestutis Jankauskas noted that, with the help of Kazakhstan and other countries, the EU hopes to reduce its dependence on China for critical materials to 50% of its needs.