The source said that Shindong Resources Co. Ltd and State Committee on geology and mineral resources of Uzbekistan signed an agreement on development of the feasibility study of the project in September 2012.

Within the agreement, Korean company was handed over initial geologic materials and it is expected that feasibility study will be completed in May 2013. Afterwards, the sides are planning to ink constituent documents of the venture.

In August 2011, Shindong Resources Co. Ltd and State Committee on geology and mineral resources of Uzbekistan signed an agreement on creation of Uzbekistan-Korea Tungsten on development of tungsten field. But, the constituent documents were not inked so far.

The source of State Committee said that it is planned to attract Almalyk Mining and Metallurgy Combine and Uzbek Combine of refractory and refractory metals.

Within the project with the preliminary cost of US$150 million, it is planned to construct mining and enrichment complex with the capacity of 1,500 tonnes of highly enriched tungsten concentrate a year.

According to the Uzbek committee, commercial reserves of Sautbai on C1 category makes up 4 million tonnes of ore, containing trioxide of tungsten at the volume of 19,900 tonnes.

In 2006, Uzbekistan approved a programme on development of tungsten fields in the country for 2007-2013 with total volume of production of tungsten concentrate at the volume of 2,700 tonnes.