On the barren land of Xie District in Karaganda Oblast, bulldozers rolled over gravel and wormwood bushes at the end of August. Recently, the launch ceremony of the North Caterpillar tungsten mine was held here - instead of cutting the ribbon and shouting slogans, the site has been undergoing site leveling, geodetic surveying, and access roads since July. A giant mineral deposit, which has been surrounded for many years and has a total of approximately 1.4 million tons of tungsten trioxide resources under JORC standards, has finally entered the soil from the blueprint.

1.1 billion US dollars landed

In the project company Northern Katpar LLP, Cove Kaz Capital Group, a subsidiary of Cove Capital in the United States, holds 70% of the shares, while Tau Ken Samruk, a state-owned asset in Kazakhstan, holds 30%. The total investment is 1.1 billion US dollars, and it is expected to bring about 2000 jobs. KAZAKH Invest, the national investment company of Kazakhstan, is on the platform. The money is mainly invested in two mines: North Kartarpal and Upper Kailakhat, as well as supporting beneficiation and deep processing facilities. The framework will be finalized during Tokayev's visit to the United States in November 2025, the equity and shareholder agreement will be closed in February 2026, and financial delivery will be completed in April. Currently, on-site preparation and final feasibility study (DFS) are underway, and DFS plans to submit the documents by the end of 2027 before finalizing the investment decision.

Do not follow the old path of selling raw materials

Kazakhstan has no intention of only serving as a raw material warehouse this time. The project aims to create a mining beneficiation deep processing line, with ammonium paratungstate (APT) extracted at the end and copper, molybdenum, and bismuth also recovered. North Caterpillar will start mining in 2030, with an annual production of approximately 5000 tons of tungsten trioxide; After conducting separate feasibility studies on parameters such as Kailaquote, the total planned annual output of the two mines is approaching 12000 tons of APT level scale, accounting for about 15% of the global current production. Tau Ken Samruk defines it as the first full cycle tungsten processing project in Kazakhstan - the ore is not sold bare, and the added value is retained domestically.

Key minerals in the card position

Tungsten is a hard currency for cutting tools, military industry, and high-end manufacturing. For Kazakhstan, this mine is not only a wedge for economic diversification, but also a key bargaining chip for mineral diplomacy: the US side has a total of $1.6 billion in intended financing from the Export Import Bank and the International Development Finance Corporation, and its products are prioritized for procurement from Western industries in the US; The Kazakh side uses the Trans Caspian International Transport Route (Middle Corridor) to transport APT to Europe and Asia, bypassing the reliance on a single channel.

From road construction drilling in 2026, to feasibility study closure in 2027, and to the selection of the first ore shovel in 2030- on this timeline, Kazakhstan wants to prove one thing: having access to the world's top undeveloped tungsten resources, it is not necessary to dig stones for cheap sales, but it can also refine high-purity products on its own before entering the market. 2000 positions, 1.1 billion US dollars, and 5000 tons of tungsten trioxide are just the first string of numbers in this story.Editor/Yang Meiling