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Azerbaijan to launch industrial gold production in early April

16 February 2009 12:28 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov - APA-Economics. The completion of infrastructure work to launch the industrial production at its Gedabek Gold Project has continued to progress on schedule, said Reza Vaziri, CEO of Azerbaijan International Mining Operating Company (AIMOC), led by Anglo Asian Mining plc..
Reza Vaziri said Gedabek is nearing completion, with gold production scheduled to begin in late March or early April.
Despite some minor weather-related delays in the spring of 2008, the project will be completed very close to the Companyâ€™s schedule and essentially within budget, he added.
The announcement follows a previous report which said the run-of-mine pad was constructed and began to be filled with material. The crusher underwent hot commissioning on Jan. 16, 2009 but without the agglomeration drum and stacker in place due to a short delivery delay. These are now expected on site before the end of January. The lining of the leach pad has been completed and tested, the solution collection piping is in place and the associated ponds and earthworks are also on schedule for completion within the same timeframe.
The Adsorption, Desorption, Refinery (ADR) and Sulphidisation, Acidification, Recycling, and Thickening (SART) tanks were installed in late December and the construction of steel structures to complete the plants is also due to be finished by the end of January. The installation of the remaining equipment, piping and electronics for the ADR and SART plants is expected to be completed by the middle of March.
Allowing for the two week period required for the installation of the agglomeration drum and stacker, first feed to the leach pad is scheduled for February, with the first gold pour anticipated by early April.
It was estimated that Gedabek had a combined gold equivalent resource of about one-million ounces, while capital costs for the project were estimated at $30.7-million.
In Gedebek field 15 tons of soil shall be refined for an ounce of gold and it is possible to extract 2 grams of gold from one ton soil.
Gold production will then be started in Gosha Field which was proved in exploration as promising and feasible.
Anglo Asian Mining Plc (49%) and Azerbaijan (51%) signed a 30-year Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) to develop previously identified copper and gold properties in Azerbaijan that lie on the Tethyan Mineralization Belt which runs between Turkey and Pakistan.
The joint venture has copper and gold development properties in 3 separate mining areas of Azerbaijan.
The six fields reflected in the agreement include one field in Nakhchivan, one in Gandja, one in Gedebey, 3 in the occupied lands (Zod Field in Kelbedjer, Kizilbulag in Aghdara, and Vajnali in Zangilan).
Under the Production Sharing Agreement, 400 tons of gold, 2,500 tons of silver and 1.5 million tons of copper will be extracted from the contract fields.