Azernews.Az

By Ofeliya Afandiyeva

Revenues of UK's Anglo Asian Mining company that operates Azerbaijan’s gold mining fields is projected at $100,000,000, the company’s CEO Reza Vaziri has said while disclosing the company’s revenue and production guidance for 2020.

“We expect that the company's revenue in 2020 will increase significantly and exceed $100 million at current prices for precious metals. Despite a slight decrease in production due to a decrease in production at the Ugur mine, the increase in metal prices observed so far should allow the company to maintain its financial performance,” Vaziri said.

The company plans to produce 75,000 - 80,000 ounces of precious metals and 65,000 to 67,000 ounces in Azerbaijan in 2020. The projected copper production amounts from 2,200 to 2,400 tons in the current year.

"Future growth in both production and our resources and reserves continue to be highly important to Anglo Asian. We are continuing at pace with our exploration programme to identify possible further production expansion in our three existing contract areas. In this respect, we recently released the highly encouraging results from our exploration programme, which highlights their potential. We also continue to look at other opportunities for expansion. I look forward to keeping the market informed of future developments," Vaziri said while commenting on the company’s plans in terms of expansion of the capacity in near future.

According to the data provided by the AAM in 2019, the company produced 81,399 ounces of metal in Azerbaijan, as well as 70,098 ounces of gold. Thus, the company will reduce its metal production from 1.7 percent to 7.9 percent in 2020. At the same time, the decline in gold production may range from 4.4 percent to 7.3 percent.

AAM also disclosed the production amount for 2019 in gold and copper mines. Gold production reached 70,098 ounces in 2019, whereas copper production amounted to 2,210 tons last year.

AAM informed that the production guidance has been calculated using the following metal prices used for the 2020 budget: gold - $1,480 per ounce, silver - $17 per ounce, copper - $5,700 per ton.

Anglo Asian Mining Company (AAM) is the largest UK mining investor in Azerbaijan. It has a broad portfolio of production and exploration assets in Azerbaijan. The Company’s key operations span three contract areas in Azerbaijan covering 1,062 square kilometres. Three additional contract areas covering 900 square kilometres are held in territories occupied by Armenia.

The Company started to produce gold in May 2009 at its open pit mine at Gedabek in Western Azerbaijan. Gadir, an underground mine 700 meters from the Gedabek open pit, commenced production in 2015. Ugur, a newly discovered gold ore deposit located three kilometres from the Company’s processing facilities at Gedabek commenced production in September 2017.

The Company has a second underground mine in the 300 square kilometre Gosha contract area located 50 kilometres north-west of Gedabek. Gosha is currently being operated as a small, high grade, underground gold mine.

Ore mined at Gedabek and Gosha is processed to produce either gold doré or a copper and precious metals concentrate using different industrial processes.

The 462 square kilometre Ordubad Contract Area, that the third contract areas, is in the Nakhichevan region of Azerbaijan and contains numerous targets including Shakardara, Piyazbashi, Misdag, Agyurt, Shalala and Diakchay, which are all located within a 5 kilometre radius. The exploration activities commenced in 2018 and the zone is estimated as a rich deposit of gold and copper.

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