TODAY.AZ / Business

AAM plans to become leading precious metals, copper producer in Caucasus

21 October 2014 [09:41] - TODAY.AZ

/AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

Anglo Asian Mining plc, a company involved in the extraction of precious metals in Azerbaijan, plans to become the most leading precious metals and copper producer in the Caucasus.

The company has released its report for the third quarter of 2014. The report shows that gold production of the company increased by 2.8 percent to 16,178 ounces from 15,736 ounces produced in the previous quarter. In the second quarter, the company produced 11,318 ounces.

Silver production for the third quarter totaled 5,504 ounces, decreasing from the second quarter, when 8,785 ounces of silver were produced. Copper production for the period totaled 210 tons.

Overall, Anglo Asian's production in the nine months of the year reached 43,232 ounces of gold, 27,419 ounces of silver and 580 tons of copper.

Anglo Asian CEO Reza Vaziri said: "As we achieved solid gold sales for the period, the Company's three year sales contract for copper concentrate also positively impacted our bottom line for the quarter."

The company is actively pursuing options to increase gold recovery to achieve the target of circa 62,000 ounces for the year in light of the ore currently being mined at Gadabay, which has a high copper content.

The company's target for copper production from its SART operation remains at 750 tons for 2014.

Although gaining a considerable amount of ore mined with a high copper content is a tough mission, Anglo Asian believes that the stockpiles of ore totaling 379,000 tons will provide an attractive opportunity.

"We are evaluating the construction of a small scale flotation plant suited to process this type of ore to produce a copper and precious metals concentrate. This will be a pilot plant for a future full-scale copper recovery plant. This would create a further production stream which will enhance our production profile as a leading precious metals and copper producer in Caucasus," he said.

The company has sold 13,797 ounces of its gold in the third quarter, at an average of $1,281 per ounce.

The copper concentrate shipments to the customers totaled 250 dry metric tons, containing 123 tons of copper and 6,639 ounces of silver at the period.

The aggregate gold sales in the nine months reached 37,343 ounces of gold at an average of $1,291 per ounce and cumulative sales of copper concentrate at $2.9 million.

Earlier, the company reported that it wrapped up the first half of 2014 with losses. The pretax loss of the company increased from $4.2 million at the same period of last year to $7.5 million as of June 30, 2014.

A report by the company said, Anglo Asian Mining's revenue for the first half-year was estimated at $32.7 million. This comes as during the same period of 2013, the revenue reached $27.6 million.

The company has also signed an exclusive sales contract with Industrial Minerals SA, a Geneva based integrated trading, mining and logistics group, for its copper concentrates. The contract is aimed at ensuring future sales revenues from this production stream.

Under the terms of the sales agreement, Industrial Minerals will purchase both dry and wet copper concentrates.

Anglo-Asian Mining has 75 tons of dry copper concentrate and 550 tons of wet copper concentrate stockpiles ready to sell.

The company has the right to develop six deposits in the south-west of Azerbaijan - Gadabay, Ordubad, Gosha Bulag, Gyzyl Bulag, Vezhnali, and Soyutlu- under a production sharing agreement signed in August 1997 with Azerbaijan's government.

The resource base of the company exceeds 36 tons of gold, 292 tons of silver and 94.000 tons of copper.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/business/137120.html

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