We return to RG Gold, the leading Kazakh gold mining production business taking bold steps in exploration and mine site safety to uphold its upward trajectory. Marat Shaimardanov, Deputy CEO and CFO, updates us on the company’s recent developments.
A GOLDEN LEGACY FOR KAZAKH MINING
The mining industry in Kazakhstan continues to flourish in the wake of increasing commodity prices, including gold, positioning itself firmly on the international mining map.
This increased activity provides an opportunity for the sector to diversify, as many of the country’s smaller mining companies are entering the field and taking on larger, more complex exploration stakes as the industry evolves.
“Ivanhoe Mines, for instance, has partnered with a local junior exploration business to conduct exploration for copper, which was a major newsmaker last year,” opens Marat Shaimardanov, Deputy CEO and CFO of RG Gold, a leading gold production company operating at the heart of Kazakhstan’s mining landscape.
The Kazakh government is simultaneously relaxing mining legislation, which is paving the way for broader exploration strategies that replicate those used by other major global industry players.
There has additionally been a new tax code introduced that has opened the door to renewed mineral extraction and allowed for an introduction of royalty-based taxation to be applied towards new producers.
“This doesn’t apply to old producers and provides a more transparent tax structure, which is a fairly easy tax burden and closer to how the rest of the world operates. Therefore, there’s a lot of deregulation happening for the mining industry, which is reflected by its current increased activity,” Shaimardanov explains.
UNLOCKING MINE SITE POTENTIAL
Since we last spoke to the company nearly 18 months ago, RG Gold has continued to excel in its heap leach operations after a temporary closure.
The company made the decision a couple of years ago to halt its mine’s heap leach process as the site was set to subside towards the end of 2025. RG Gold went as far to demobilise the mine’s headcount, ensuring it honoured staff who had worked on its production for a long time.
However, as the company progressed with its exploration results in mid-2024, RG Gold realised that an abundance of heap leach potential remained, particularly as increasing gold prices meant the business could recalculate the value of its available resources.
“We quickly made a decision to remobilise the mine again, which we’ve done successfully by rehiring the previous staff and recommissioning the operation. It’s currently going very well and we expect it to continue for another five years,” Shaimardanov enthuses.
Elsewhere, RG Gold is proceeding with the development of its carbon-in-pulp (CIP) plant that was built in 2022 to a world-class standard.
The company’s core activities in the CIP plant have involved strategic restructuring to alleviate a bottleneck in its existing operations, allowing RG Gold to reach new levels of production and significantly increase its nameplate capacity.
Indeed, the plant’s overall capacity has elevated from five million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to a 7.2 Mtpa run rate as of Q2 2025, with the goal to sustainably stabilise existing equipment performance at an annual throughput of 7+ Mtpa in 2026.
“Anything beyond that and we will probably need to do some sort of capital investments into our operations,” Shaimardanov notes.
Elsewhere, RG Gold has also excelled its geological exploration capabilities, particularly in the face of anticipated resource expansion, which is offering the company the chance to double its operational capacity in the mid-term.
CAPITALISING ON GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES
A key element of its projected growth, the company is looking forward to the expansion of its tailings storage facility (TSF).
“We successfully completed the second stage of the TSF expansion last year on time and within budget, which allows us to operate for another four years without the need for further expansion,” Shaimardanov details.
However, rather than demobilise the USD$30 million project, RG Gold decided to continue constructing the next phase to continue its upward trajectory.
The company has, meanwhile, identified two additional small mining deposits around its mining licence and is in the process of obtaining more mining licences for this new discovery which, advantageously, doesn’t require the construction of new infrastructure due to its proximity to an existing mine site.
Additionally, RG Gold is reaping the rewards of its recently commissioned oxygen plant that will increase the company’s cyanide detoxification levels, enabling it to exceed the standards of the World Gold Council.
“Although we are already meeting the requirements, the new plant will help improve our operational efficiency even further,” he adds.
Most noteworthy, however, is RG Gold’s decision to switch mining strategies.
“Unlike many other mines in Kazakhstan that own their own fleet, we started the project by outsourcing our mining activities to local contractors.
“This agreement is coming in early next year, so we are busy assessing the ways to switch to owner mining in order to achieve better efficiency and quality control, especially around areas of safety,” Shaimardanov comments.
A CULTURE OF SAFETY
Safety remains a key priority and pillar of RG Gold’s success, ensuring it maintains the highest standards.
“We have expanded the department headcount three times over the past year and improved our overall safety standards across the board, both on construction and operational projects,” Shaimardanov highlights.
Indeed, the company has devoted much of its management strategy to conducting a thorough gap analysis to gain a complete understanding of where it currently stands and how it can improve its safety measures.
“We have gone on many field trips to help benchmark our operations worldwide, even as far as Australia, as well as locally,” Shaimardanov tells us.
The company has also attracted leading expatriate talent to oversee its safety strategy, heightening expectations in reporting in particular.
“Although we’ve had fairly good track record, we’ve identified significant gaps around contractor management and our staff’s safety reporting standards because the majority of our key performance indicators (KPIs) are heavily linked to reporting levels.”
In fact, RG Gold has found that people are less inclined to report incidents because they are punished through the KPI index.
Therefore, the company has separated the two concepts and instead emphasises the importance of safety reporting. As a result, RG Gold has found that its employees are more prone to reporting safety incidents.
This new strategy is part of a wider effort to make a cultural change in the company whereby its staff understand the importance of safety, emphasising how such standards transcend title or position.
“For example, our CEO was stopped from entering a site because he was not wearing the right personal protective equipment and was told to wear the correct gloves,” Shaimardanov shares.
RG Gold strives to go above and beyond in its safety standards by applying them to contractors as well as staff, ensuring that they have an equally punitive approach to reporting incidents.
“We promote safety standards with contractors to get them involved in our training programmes and ensure they pay more attention to them. We are far from perfect, but we are moving in the right direction,” he affirms.
LOCALLY SOURCED
The safety compliance of RG Gold’s contractors is highly significant because the company outsources many parts of its essential and non-essential business, typically contracted on an annual basis.
“We preferably try to work with local providers specifically because they understand how we operate and the mentality of the company.
“Given we are located in a very remote area with only a few small villages surrounding us, it’s best to find outsourcing suppliers as locally as possible,” Shaimardanov urges.
Case in point, the company’s biggest contract partner is a local mining services provider that is vital to RG Gold’s processing and exploration capabilities.
The company additionally builds strong relationships with local foundations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who provide generic services including laundry, cleaning, and basic food supply.
These partnerships have been highly successful, especially for maintaining dialogue with the local community so that they can understand how the business operates and benefit from its growth.
RG Gold only refers to its international suppliers for essential business activities that cannot be sourced locally, such as SGS SA, a large Swiss-based lab operator who conducts analytical studies on the mine site, ultimately maintaining quality assurance and control for the company.
“We preferably try to work with local providers specifically because they understand how we operate and the mentality of the company”
Marat Shaimardanov, Deputy CEO and CFO, RG Gold
PROGRESSIVE AND PERSONALISED
RG Gold has not only maintained but elevated its focus on employee development in the last year, demonstrated by the external training programmes and opportunities it offers to staff.
The company creates personal development plans for employees on-site across all levels of the business, including those who aspire to become managers and superintendents in the future.
RG Gold has similarly created numerous pathways for its senior staff to advance and partners with local and international universities so its employees can obtain business acumen to a global standard.
“This allows them to not only manage their specific area but also try new approaches to management with deepened understanding of costs and benefits,” Shaimardanov elaborates.
Moreover, RG Gold views its new operational capabilities as an opportunity to improve its development offerings through internal job quality assessments.
The business has additionally been supportive of its employees forming industrial associations. For example, the company’s Geotechnical Engineering Manager has created a local geotechnical association for Kazakhstan.
“We’ve sponsored the association, which has already gained international status in its second year with attendance from over 20 countries. It is an open platform for technical dialogue and sharing of best practices.”
Shaimardanov cites the reasoning behind such high attendance in a short amount of time to the fact that geotechnical conditions on a mine site can be incredibly challenging.
In contrast, RG Gold’s staff are incredibly progressive thanks to international training opportunities that enable them to introduce new technologies to the mine site, facilitating greater knowledge of pit slope stability and water management, for example, which has garnered significant interest from the rest of the industry.
Such positive employee development strategies are proven by the impressive decline of the company’s staff turnover, which in two years has reduced from approximately 19 percent to five percent in 2025.
FORGING FUTURE GROWTH
Forecast for continued growth, RG Gold has a steadfast list of targets to ensure its ongoing success.
Firstly, the company strives to continue delivering its construction projects on time, within budget, and safely.
“We need to maintain our overall efficiency, the throughput we have reached, and our progression in site exploration,” Shaimardanov sets out.
On the latter, RG Gold has managed to maintain its rising ore reserves with some huge discoveries of late, increasing from approximately 450,000 ounces (oz) to four million oz, whilst its resources have grown beyond 10 million oz in less than eight years of continued exploration.
Solidifying this growth remains a key focus as the company’s shareholder structure transitions in the coming year, which will see RG Gold become part of a global gold operator.
As such, the company looks forward to implementing some new benchmarks and acquiring new gold tenders.
“It’s really about sustaining the business, raising the bar in terms of operational quality, retaining employees, ensuring our transition in shareholding goes smoothly, and taking our expansion to the next level,” Shaimardanov concludes.
