Mining firm Kazakhmys link to 'lead poison plant'

Mining giant Kazakhmys has close ties to a factory responsible for lead poisoning, according to evidence obtained by the Daily Mail.

The company denies that it owns or operates the lead smelter at Shymkent used gold mining equipment in dubaiin Kazakhstan, where environmental surveys show concentrations of lead 26 times the maximum legal amount.

But the Mail has gathered evidence that undermines the firm’s effort to distance itself from the dangerous pollution at Shymkent.

Recordings of an interview with a local TV channel show Kazakhmys executive director and head of copper, Eduard Ogay, at the re-opening of the Shymkent plant, flanked by Kazakhmys employees.

He said that ‘we have begun to produce lead’ and when asked by a local politician about the environmental ramifications states: ‘We will solve these issues, but it is expensive.’

In a separate interview in 2010, the company’s executive director of metallurgy, Yerzhan Ospanov, makes the company’s ties to the smelter even clearer.

He says the owner of the plant, a firm called YPM, handed over operation to a company called A-Mega Trading, in order to satisfy an outstanding debt to Kazakhmys by resuming production which had ceased.

Kazakhmys, which supplied lead dust to the smelter as part of the deal, says A-Mega Trading is a separate company.

But Ospanov concedes that the plant is operated by a team of former Kazakhmys employees, saying that ‘we have sent the best managers here, to guarantee as much as possible the best result’.

He adds: ‘Kazakhmys will take over operational management of production and financial activities in order to avoid non-productive expenses and to maximise profit.’

Kazakhmys says it has never operated the plant and has stopped supplying the smelter with lead dust.

But its close ties to A-Mega Trading – coupled with the fact that the plant was re-opened in part to service a debt to Kazakhmys – raise questions for its non-executive directors.