British mining company increases gold production

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The British company Anglo Asian Mining, extracted precious metals in the amount of 39,905 ounces of gold equivalent in January to June 2019. It is seven percent more than in the same period of 2018.

Anglo Asian Mining PLC is a company with a portfolio of gold, copper and silver production and exploration assets in Azerbaijan.

In the first half of 2019, the company extracted 34,394 ounces of gold (an increase of 3.4 percent compared to January-June 2018), copper - 963 tons (an increase of 64.1 percent), silver - 84,586 ounces (a decline of 0.3 percent), the company reported.

In addition, the company produced 5,408 tons of copper concentrate (2.2 times increase) in this period.

The message says that as many as 31,620 ounces of gold was produced from the Gadabay deposit (an increase of 1.1 percent).

"Of this amount, the company sold 26,588 ounces of gold in the world markets (an increase of 3.1 percent) at an average price of $1,319 per ounce," said the company.

In the first half of the year, the company also sold 4,286 tons of copper concentrate for $7.43 million.

By the end of 2019, the company plans to mine precious metals in the amount of 82,000-86,000 ounces of gold equivalent, of which from 65,000- 67,500 ounces will be gold.

Currently, Anglo Asian Mining is mining precious metals in the Gadabay contract area from three mines: gold, silver and copper from two open mines (Gadabay and Ugur) and one underground mine (Gadir).

The PSA type contract was signed on August 21, 1997 and provides for the development of six fields. The share of Azerbaijan in the contract is 51 percent, while Anglo Asian Mining accounts for 49 percent.

It is planned to mine 400 tons of gold and 2,500 tons of silver from these deposits, according to the contract.

The extraction of the first gold began in 2009 from the Gadabay deposit, the extraction of silver in 2010. In September 2013, the company began to develop the contract area of Gosha, in the summer of 2015 from the Gadir mine, and from September 2017 the Ugur mine.

The Group has a 1,926 square kilometre portfolio of gold, silver and copper properties at various stages of the development cycle. These include Anglo Asian’s Gedabek open pit and underground Gadir mine and the Ugur open pit mine at Gadabay, the Gosha mine which is located 50 km from Gadabay and Ordubad, the Group’s early stage gold and copper exploration project.

In 2018, Anglo Asian reported total production of 72,798 ounces of gold, 1,645 tonnes of copper and 210,184 ounces of silver. Total production in gold equivalent ounces was 83,736 ounces for 2018.