Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend , corr S. Babayeva / Anglo Asian Mining PLC involved in gold and copper exploitation in Azerbaijan has submitted a report on the commercial profitability perspectives of the Gadabey field to the Ministry of Ecology
Gadabey Project has entered the implementation stage and the technical equipment will be ready by the second quarter of 2007. As result of the estimation it was found that during at least 5 years the annual gold production will comprise of about 55,000 - 77,000 ounces. Capital investments will exceed $25mln. Production costs are expected to be below $275 per ounce.
Gordon Lewis, the Chief Executive of Anglo Asian Mining PLC, reported that the Company will proceed with exploration work in other fields of Azerbaijan ("Ordubad" and "Gosha").
The optimum method of copper extraction in Gadabay is the combining of open quarrying methods. The result will be very positive for the Company, as heap leaching is less expensive than the initially suggested traditional CIL technology.
In the preliminary exploration, experts from SRK Consulting (estimation of resources), SGS Lakefield (metallurgy), Gekko Systems (metallurgy), Knights Piesold (projecting and geotechnical work), and a number of independent consultants on the projection of fields, metallurgy, economics and environment were involved.