Gold and silver: Anglo Asian’s Ugur into production

Anglo Asian Mining, the AIM listed gold, copper and silver producer, has commenced production at its latest mine, the Ugur open-pit mine, located at its Gedabek licence area in Western Azerbaijan. The Directors report that Ugur is already making a highly significant contribution to Anglo Asian’s production. The average daily gold production in the form of gold doré for the period from September 1 to 10 from the whole complex was 212 oz which is 116% higher than the average daily production for the previous eight months. This average daily production is expected to increase further as Ugur moves into full production.

  • Significantly increased average daily gold production from Ugur – average daily gold doré production for first 10 days of September has more than doubled compared to the average daily production of the previous eight months
  • Mining conducted by conventional shovel and truck haulage before crushing and agitation leaching treatment
  • Ugur ore treated only by agitation leaching – flotation plant is now independently processing mainly high sulphide stockpiled ore
  • Production at Ugur being conducted in parallel with optimisation and expansion initiatives across Gedabek to deliver a long-term, sustainable and profitable mining operation.

Anglo Asian CEO, Reza Vaziri, said “Progressing from discovery to production in a year is a significant achievement and underlines Anglo Asian’s confidence that the Ugur deposit will be an important contributor to the company’s future production. Indeed, the impact on gold doré production has already been significant. The average daily ounces of gold produced as doré has more than doubled so far in September compared to the previous eight months.

“Bringing Ugur into production now, whilst we undertake the previously reported optimisation and expansion initiatives across our wider Gedabek licence area, will offset the anticipated decrease in gold production from our main Gedabek open pit due to the changing composition of the ore. With this in mind, we are pleased to reconfirm our production forecast of 64,000 to 72,000 of gold equivalent ounces in 2017 and building on this in 2018 and beyond.”

Anglo Asian’s in-house exploration team defined a new mineral occurrence in 2016 named Ugur (meaning “good luck” or “success” in the Azeri language) from geological mapping and surface sampling methods.  Ugur is located 3 km north-west from the processing facilities at Gedabek.

The deposit comprises an oxide gold-rich zone to a depth varying between 50 to 60 m. The area covered by drilling and the proposed open pit outline is 350 m (east-northeast) by 250 m (north-northwest).

The company initiated extensive exploration activities in Q4 2016 to define the resource and reserves potential of the deposit. This work resulted in the completion of a JORC (2012) resource in August 2017 which delineated a total Mineral Resource of 199,000 oz of gold and 1,049,000 oz of silver that includes a Measured plus Indicated Mineral Resource of 172,000 oz of gold and 884,000 oz of silver.  Proven plus Probable Reserves of 147,000 oz of gold and 808,000 oz of silver, comprising over 70% of the total Mineral Resource, was also declared.

In conjunction with the exploration activities conducted at Ugur, development work was undertaken which included the construction of a 4.6-km road between the Ugur gold deposit and the processing facilities. Work is nearing completion on constructing all necessary infrastructure. This includes the mine, geology and medical and HSE offices, hygiene facilities, mechanical workshop, lubricants and spares stores, a weighbridge and diesel store.

The company is processing the Ugur ore only by agitation leaching. The Ugur oxide-rich ores do not contain copper and therefore the tailings of the agitation leaching plant are not treated by flotation. The flotation plant is now independently processing 300 to 400 t/d of mainly high sulphide ore stockpiled using its own mills. This is another configuration of the company’s processing facilities and again demonstrates the flexibility of the processing routes available to Anglo Asian.