Sarytogan pegs second copper project in major Kazakh mineral belt​on February 11, 2025 at 9:26 am

Sarytogan Graphite has pegged three anomalies in a greenfields copper project over the Koskuduk Caldera at Kopa in southern Kazakhstan, within a structural belt hosting most of the country’s porphyry copper mines.

Four other base metal and/or gold anomalies identified during Soviet times lie within the tenement, while the separate, adjacent Zartas gold mine, less than 4km north of the company’s new ground, also features copper-lead-zinc anomalism.

The 120-square-kilometre Kopa exploration licence lies about 100km northwest of the country’s most populous city of Almaty and was recently granted for six years with a right to extend.

The new ground is Sarytogan’s second copper project in the country. It complements the company’s first copper exploration licence where an aeromagnetic survey and soil sampling identified several copper anomalies along the western margins of the Baynazar Caldera, only 26km southwest of its established graphite project.

The company identified its latest Kopa target after researching historical exploration which threw up three centres of base metals anomalism – checked out during company site visits last year – at Sholak in the north-west of the licence, Bastau in the southwest and at Zholbars in the northeastern extremity of the project.

‘Kopa is the second copper exploration project added to Sarytogan’s portfolio. It complements our Baynazar project where in less than one year an aeromagnetic survey and soil sampling have generated exciting copper porphyry targets.’

Sarytogan Graphite managing director Sean Gregory

Despite the extensive copper-lead-zinc anomalism identified at Kopa – and even a rare fluorine hit in the eastern extremities of the licence – almost all of the previous exploration in the area has only been for gold, including the small Zartas deposit.

Gold also forms part of the polymetallic suite at Sholak and Bastau and is the sole metal signature determined at Zholbars.

All of Sarytogan’s targets lie within or appear to be associated with small mapped exposures of secondary quartzites and clay alteration, surrounded by the dominant volcanic tuffs and lavas typical of the caldera.