The Irokinda is located in the Buryatia Republic, approximately 75 km from the town of Taksimo, where the Baikal- Amur railway station and airport are located. The mine is accessible from an all-season road. Production began in 1985.
Irokinda 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.
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.
