Canadian mining company, Arras Minerals, plans to start active drilling in the first half of 2025, targeting copper and gold deposits in Kazakhstan’s Pavlodar region. This announcement follows the company’s extensive geological exploration in 2024, covering a 1,700-square-kilometer area near its Beskauga, Elemes, and Tay projects, located close to Ekibastuz.
Arras Minerals drilled 435 holes and collected 35,000 soil samples during its exploration efforts, which identified promising prospecting sites for further drilling. According to the company’s press release, the first phase of drilling will begin in 2025 at these high-priority copper targets, which are located under shallow cover and have not been previously drilled.
“It’s exciting to witness the significant progress made by the Arras-Teck Exploration Alliance in understanding this prospective and under-explored belt. We anticipate commencing drill-testing of several high-priority copper targets, currently undrilled and under shallow cover, in the first half of 2025,” said Tim Barry, CEO of Arras Minerals.
The exploration covers two key sites. The first is a 1,300-square-kilometer area located 56 kilometers northwest of Ekibastuz, near the Bozshakol mine, owned by Kaz Minerals. The second site, located 90 kilometers southeast of Ekibastuz, includes the Akkuduk and Norgubek projects. Both areas are believed to hold significant copper and gold potential.
Arras Minerals currently holds the third-largest license package for copper and gold exploration in Kazakhstan, trailing only Rio Tinto and Fortescue. In December 2023, the company signed an agreement with Teck Resources Limited (TRL), another Canadian mining firm, under which Teck will allocate $5 million for geological exploration between 2024 and 2025. Additionally, Teck Resources holds a 10% stake in the Beskauga project.
Darren Klinck, President of Arras Minerals, shared his perspective on Kazakhstan’s evolving mining industry in a September 2024 interview at the Precious Metals Summit in Colorado. Klinck, who had limited knowledge of Kazakhstan just a few years ago, now considers the country one of the most business-friendly places to operate in the mining sector. He praised Kazakhstan for its ongoing reforms, particularly in the mining industry, which he believes has adopted the best practices from regions like Western Australia and parts of Canada.
“It’s truly a nation that, even in the last five or six years, has gone through immense change. They’ve done things in terms of reforms across all aspects of business, but when it comes to mining, they effectively copied the Western Australian mining code, threw in a few of the good things from Ontario and Quebec, and now you’ve got the major mining companies starting to arrive,” Klinck said. “It’s been nothing but positive surprises, and from a jurisdiction perspective, probably one of the easiest places to operate that I’ve worked in over the last 20 years.”
With these positive developments, Arras Minerals is positioned to capitalize on Kazakhstan’s growing mining industry, as the country continues to attract international interest and investment.
