The Zun-Holba is also located in the Buryatia Republic, approximately 315 km from the village of Kultuk, which is on the Trans-Siberian railway, and 400 km from the city of Irkutsk. It is also accessible by an all-season road. Production began in 1986.
The Zun-Holba was acquired by Nordgold in late 2008 as part of the controlling interest in High River Gold. Nordgold holds a 90.6% voting interest in Buryatzoloto (includes Irokinda and Zun-Holba).
In 2015, Buryatzoloto delivered stable production and strong cost performance. The mines produced 112.7 thousand ounces (Irokinda and Zun-Holba mines).
The Irokinda and Zun-Holba mines are both relatively mature underground operations. Both contain a processing plants, each with crushing, grinding, gravity and flotation circuits. The Zun-Holba plant also contains a CIL circuit and related facilities. For processing, there are two crushing stages and two grinding stages using ball mills, followed by gravity separation, which produces concentrates for both the gravity and flotation circuits. The gravity circuit is used to recover free gold, after which smelting produces dore bars. Flotation is used to recover finer gold particles into a flotation concentrate. At the end of 2014, Irokinda and Zun-Holbaemployed approximately 3,000 people.
