Some Visits

A couple of exciting visits this past week...

First, the President was at the office tower for some Sovereign Wealth Fund meetings. Of course, nobody knew if it would be the first president or second president until the visit, but preparations were intense none-the-less. 

First, all interlocking brick sidewalks were finished over the past week, trees planted, main street was pressure washed, and a wall was put up (left side) all along the road so the unsightly village in the middle of town couldn't be seen from the road...

Next, all winter-killed grass was replaced, fresh shrubs and plants put in...

And finally, day of the visit, all road lines and crosswalks were freshly painted. The motorcade route was pretty clear (bottom right side road...not painted...)!

And finally, the big arrival. Note every person on the sidewalks is KNB (Kazakh Intelligence Service) and military - posted on every corner, including in front of my apartment tower off in the distance...and here come the Prez...

Hopping out to shake a couple of hands - with snipers on the roof across from my window...

 

Note a few key vehicles in the picture below - white bus top centre to load up any problematic people, black KNB truck top left with dogs that checked all cars, parking lots, and all building offices, and the white KNB truck with antennas sticking out - it scrambles all cell signals in the vicinity, so no cell service in the building that day...

oh, and it turned out to be the first president...

KATCO and SaUran

The rest of the week was spent on a trip to Shymkent in South Kazakhstan to train some subsidiary personnel on disclosure post-IPO, along with a visit to the Orano JV KATCO sites (Kazatomprom-Cogema) and SaUran site. For this particular outing I was nestled right in among all the 'stans!

Shymkent was great, with $35/night hotel rooms and amazing lamb Shashlik (for which it's famous - best shish-kabobs in Kazakhstan due to the proximity to Uzbekistan)

A balmy +35C, great outdoor restaurants. 

 Very few buildings greater than 6 stories due to the earthquake risk in the area.

 

And as always, extremely ornate restaurants (that were largely empty due to Ramadan, which is a bit more diligently observed in south Kazakhstan vs. Nur-Sultan)

Left Shymkent for the mines and on the 4 hour drive, passed through a few smaller poor villages, bit different atmosphere...

 But aside from the lack of fences and animals just grazing randomly, felt like Alberta foothills...

Looks like Regina to me?

Then a couple of hours in, got a little drier...

And BOOM - not quite Alberta anymore...

And finally, to the world's largest in-situ recovery mine (producing 7% of the world's uranium) at the Muyunkum and Tortkuduk deposits.

Night was spent at camp, called "La Porte Des Etoiles" - "door of stars" owing to the shape of the camp from the air.

Not there long enough to catch a movie...

Main camp common area was a huge open area with plants and birds, pool tables, commissary, computers, etc. 

Rooms were quite typical - though a nicer feature compared to Canadian mines was an exterior metal roller blind operated from inside that completely blacks out the room for night shift workers (vs. Garbage bags on windows which is typically the case). 

Every room had warnings to keep an eye out for the local fauna...with awesome translations. "Symptoms of the scorpion bite: IS PROBABILITY OF THE DEATH OUTCOME". Well shit.

On the mine site...few surprises - little to see on surface - pumps in fields, a header house to fine-tune extraction chemistry and pump it back to the mill. Biggest difference at the mill was the space - buildings generally leave lots of extra room vs. North America, where everything is only big enough to house exactly the equipment needed.

Next stop was SaUran, 100% Kazatomprom owned. Tour was a little harder - at Katco, with Russian and French ownership bused in from all over, common working language was English. At SaUran, where the entire staff lives in the nearby town...all Russian and Kazakh. They had 1 partly English speaking girl in IT who helped me out!

Very nice in-situ recovery demo model.

And then back to Shymkent to head home. Heard of horses at a bus stop, also waiting to head home, apparently.

That completed yet another trip - stubs have been building up since Feb. This week is on to planning a North American IR roadshow, followed by a trip back to S'toon!