Khakandja deposit is located in Okhotsk district of the Khabarovsk Territory, 92 km north-west from Okhotsk settlement, a regional center.

Yurievskoe, a satellite deposit, is located 60 km from Khakandja and mined by open pit method since 2008. In 2010 mining of Yurievskoe will be completed. This ore is processed at Khakandja gold-recovery plant.

The plant uses process with cyanide leaching and gold and silver precipitation on zinc powder (Merrill-Crow).

Result of the ore processing – zinc precipitate which is then transported to a refinery where it is processed into gold and silver bullions.

2010 became the record year for Khakanja. Both gold and silver production increased (by 18% and 54% as compared to 2009 and reached 127Koz and 2.6 Moz respectively) as a result of significant portion of the feed coming from Yurievskoye (a high-grade satellite deposit) and peak grades in the ore mined at Khakanja pits.

To address the issue of declining grades underground operations commenced at Yurievskoye in Q4 2010, so this mine will resume supply of the high-grade feed to the plant in 2012. Open-pit operations began at Avlayakan (part of the AK project acquired in Q4 2010) in December 2010 with the plan to ship to and process at Khakanja 30 Kt of high-grade ore in the second half of 2011. Underground development at Khakanja proper is planned to commence in Q4 2011 with the goal to mine first ore in 2012.

Licenses:

• HAB № 01160 BE dated 06.10.1998 for the right of exploration and commercial development of Khakandja gold-silver deposit (license holder - JSC «Okhotsk exploration Company»).
• HAB № 01161 BE dated 06.10.1998 Exploration and commercial development of Yurievskoe gold-silver deposit till 2014 (license holder - JSC «Okhotsk exploration Company»).

Reserves and resources in compliance with JORC Code can be seen by reference

Production results of Khakandja in 2009 are available here