JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Gold, copper and silver miner Anglo Asian is on schedule to produce the first ore from its Ugur deposit – a new mineral resource 3 km west of its Gedabek licence in western Azerbaijan – in the fourth quarter of this year.
The deposit, which was discovered last year, provided the company with an “easily mineable” orebody, said group director of geology and mining Stephen Westhead.
An in-house estimate shows that the deposit contains about 195 000 oz of in-situ gold, which is amenable to agitation and heap-leach processing.
Pre-stripping of the top soil will start in late July with mining by conventional shovel and truck haulage starting in the fourth quarter.
"Anglo Asian will have progressed from making our first exploratory drill-hole of the Ugur deposit to producing ore from an openpit mine in little over one year,” said CEO Reza Vaziri.
"Production flexibility, expansion and opportunity are resulting from the development of the Ugur gold deposit together with the exploration and optimisation of other deposits in the Gedabek contract area. The resultant production profile will allow a timeframe for expanded exploration and evaluation of other mineralisation indicators for future growth," he added.
In addition to production starting from the new Ugur openpit mine, mining will also restart in the Gadir and Gosha underground mines. Ore production from Gadir has been reduced from February until September to allow for development and exploration drilling. Any ore mined from Gadir during this exploration development phase will be mainly stockpiled for fourth-quarter production, although Anglo Asian said that it had sent 24 000 t of ore for processing during the six months to June.
Full production from the main Gedabek openpit will resume in 2018.