The Chatkal Rare Earth Facility is the by-products plant of the Chatkal Chemical Smelting Complex. It treats flue dust, slimes and other residues from antimony smelting to recover bismuth, tellurium and small amounts of other metals. These are sold as oxides and ingots to electronics and chemical manufacturers.
Sulphuric acid
Since 2018 the gas-capture unit of the Chatkal roaster has converted sulphur dioxide from the roasting of stibnite into sulphuric acid. The acid is used in the Combine's own water treatment and laboratories, and the surplus is sold to customers in the ISEZ.
Mercury recovery unit
Cinnabar occurs with the stibnite in the Sary-Bulak ore, and some mercury collects in the smelter residues. A small unit at Chatkal recovered it until 2019. Under the Restart Programme the unit is to be refurbished to current environmental standards. This requires a new operating permit from the Ministry of Natural Resources and a public hearing in Sary-Bulak District, which will be held on 26-11-2026. No work on the unit will begin before the permit is issued. See the notice of the hearing.
The name
The plant takes its name from plans of the 1980s to process rare-earth concentrates from the Chatkal highlands. These plans were not carried out, and the plant does not process rare-earth ores.
History
The methods used at the plant to refine bismuth from smelter residues were developed in the Soviet period by the chemist Svetlana Kozlova, deputy for chemistry to Mikhail Chernov, who directed metallurgical production at Chatkal from 1981 to 1991.
Products: see Bismuth and tellurium.