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Azerbaijan ups gold production

Business Materials 8 April 2011 10:09 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, April 8 / Trend N.Ismayilova /

The Anglo-Asian Mining plc company, only gold producer in Azerbaijan, produced 14,028 ounces of gold from the Gedabek gold/copper mine ('Gedabek') in Azerbaijan, the company reported.

"I am extremely pleased with the Company's progress and believe that our target of producing a minimum 60,000 ounces of gold by the end of 2011 is highly achievable. In tandem with this, robust gold prices have hit an average of $1,385 per ounce," Anglo Asian CEO Reza Vaziri said.

Extreme winter weather conditions over the recent months at Gedabek have resulted in leaching becoming sluggish, and as a result, Q1 2011 production of 14,028 oz gold is below that of Q4 2010, but represents a 3% increase on the comparable period for 2010, which saw gold production of 13,660 oz. The Company is confident that it will achieve an annual production at Gedabek of a minimum of 60,000 oz gold for FY 2011. In terms of gold sales, the buoyant gold price has seen Anglo Asian completing sales of 11,269 oz gold at an average of $1,385 per oz for the three months to March 31, 2011.

During the quarter the Company transferred 208,000 tonnes of dry ore onto the leach pad with an average gold content of 3.32 g/t (Q4 2010: 240,208 tonnes of dry ore onto the leach pad with an average gold content of 4.32 g/t).

Anglo Asian Mining Plc. owns the rights to develop six fields in southwest Azerbaijan, including Gedabek, Ordubad, Gosha Bulag, Gizil Bulag, Vejnali and Soyutlu. The concession is based on PSA agreements signed with the Azerbaijani government in Aug. 1997.
According to the contract, it is planned to produce about 400 tons of gold, 2,500 tons of silver and 1.5 million tons of copper.

Gold and silver were first discovered through mining in Gedabek in May 2009. In general, plans cover mining more than 300 million ounces of gold on the field before 2015.

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