Azer News

New gold deposit discovered

- By Amina Nazarli

New gold reserves have been discovered in Gadabay region of resource-rich Azerbaijan. The Anglo-Asian Mining plc, a leading gold mining company in the country, discovered a new deposit of gold in the Gadabay gold, copper, and silver mine in western Azerbaijan.

Preliminar­y testwork results yielded an average recovery of gold of 87 percent on the new reserve 'Ugur'

The company announced that the Ugur reserve provides significan­t potential upside to the Company's future gold production.

CEO of the company Reza , commenting on the discovery said, the discovery of the Ugur deposit has the potential to add significan­tly to the company’s gold resources and reserves and hence the future production at Gadabay.

“Having recently returned to profitabil­ity, and following the completion of several operationa­l initiative­s to improve efficienci­es and lower costs at Gadabay, I believe Anglo Asian is now well positioned to expand its mineable reserves which will lay the foundation­s for long term and sustainabl­e production from multiple deposits at Gadabay,” he said, further mentioning that the company looks to unlock the potential from this new target and increase value for its shareholde­rs in the process.

Anglo Asian Group Director of Geology, Stephen Westhead, said that this prospect is very exciting given its close proximity to the Gadabay processing facilities and the initial positive drill and metallurgi­cal testwork results.

"We look forward to continuing exploratio­n work with a view to enlarging our gold and copper resources and reserves for extending or increasing mine production," Westhead said.

The new reserve is located three km north-west from its agitation leaching plant and heap leach facilities at its Gadabay License. This was defined as part of the ongoing exploratio­n programme to assess alteration zones and geological structures along strike from its Gadabay mine.

The results of about 20 tests have shown that the precious metal is located at a depth of 360 meters.

A further geological exploratio­n target has been defined in the expanded Ugur area based on similar alteration and geomorphol­ogical position to the Ugur deposit that is located about 1,500 metres to the south of the current Ugur RC drilling area. This will be further evaluated as part of the 2017 programme of field work.

Gold reserves, being the most significan­t geological discoverie­s in the country, have doubled in Azerbaijan due to deposits found in recent years. In the last ten years, 192 deposits of various profiles were put on the balance in 25 regions of the country.

Anglo Asian Mining, a cash generative and profitable gold and copper mining and exploratio­n company, started gold and silver production in May 2009 and copper concentrat­e production in 2010 at the Gadabay mine.

The company has the rights to develop six deposits in the southwest 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 gold and silver produced there are sent to Switzerlan­d for refining, and gold bars are delivered to the country and preserved by the government.

In 2015, Anglo Asian reported total production of 72,032 ounces of cold, 969 tonnes of cooper and 28,628 ounces of silver.

Overall, Azerbaijan produced 2,229 kilograms of gold in 2015. The production growth hit 19.1 percent compared to the figure of 2014.

The Ministry for Ecology and Natural Recourses estimates that the country is able to produce about 10-15 tons of gold a year.

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