The facility, located in Almaty, opened June 24.

“Gemcom has long been involved in the mining industry in Kazakhstan and central Asia and has established strong ties with government entities and numerous operations including Kazakhmys, Eurasia Natural Resource, ArcelorMittal and Kazatomprom,” Gemcom AustralAsia senior vice president Andrew Pyne said.

“[It] strengthens our local presence, allowing us to work more closely with our clients in their language of choice.

“It also means our clients will have access to the full range of Gemcom’s software and service solutions to drive productivity and additional economic value from their projects.”

The company, which confirmed that it will hire all local staff for the office, said that its software, including Surpac, Minex, MineSched and Whittle, were already widely used in the region by mining companies and exploration operations.

In addition to holding the world’s second-largest reserves of uranium, chromium, lead and zinc, Kazakhstan also contains central Asia’s largest region of recoverable coal reserves.

Pyne said many central Asian countries had been seeking greater assistance with geology, engineering and mining operations as the industry expanded in Kazakhstan and throughout the region.

“With the ability to draw upon the resources of Gemcom’s global services team, clients have access to expertise that spans all commodities and the mining value chain from exploration through mine production management,” he said.

The Kazakhstan office is Gemcom’s third office opening for the AustralAsia business unit in the last year. Others include Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Jakarta, Indonesia.

In related news, the company also announced earlier this month that Warren Johnstone has rejoined Gemcom Software International as vice president of global services.

He was previously regional vice president of Gemcom’s Africa business unit from 2004 to 2007.