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Gold producer finishes half-year of 2014 with losses

25 September 2014 11:59 (UTC+04:00)
Gold producer finishes half-year of 2014 with losses

By Nigar Orujova

Anglo Asian Mining plc, a company involved in the extraction of precious metals in Azerbaijan, finished the first half of 2014 with losses.

The pretax loss of the company increased from $4.2 million at the same period of last year to $7.5 million as of June 30, 2014.

A report by the company said, Anglo Asian Mining's revenue for the first half-year was estimated at $32.7 million, while during the same period of 2013, the revenue reached to $27.6 million.

Sale's revenue of the company amounted to $33.5 million and gross loss to $800,000. The net debt of the company reached $46.1 million.

In the same period, Anglo Asian Mining improved gold, silver and copper production. Thus, gold production in the first half of 2014 increased to 27,054 ounces, while the number was 17,497 ounces in the same period of 2013, silver - 27,924 ounces vs 10,661 in H1 2013, and 646 dry metric tons of copper concentrate production, which was 285 dmt at the same period of 2013.

The company also published a report on the increase of gold, silver, and copper sales.

Production target of the year-end from Gadabay and Gosha mining is expected at 62,000 ounces, SART copper processing plant's production target is 750 tons of copper.

The company reports that the progress made with exploration and development of Gadabay deposit will increase the life of mine.

The chairman of the company said, this year, the company has been primarily focused on developing its flagship Gadabay gold, copper and silver mine in western Azerbaijan.

"Following the difficult start of the year, with slower than anticipated production in Q1 2014 and higher than expected operating costs, we are now making progress to ensure the growth of Gadabay production and in turn of Anglo Asian as a leading gold production company in Caucasia," it was said.

The chairman noted a difficult period for gold companies globally with the effects still being felt because of substantial reduction in the gold price experienced in 2013, which along with the slow start to the year for Anglo Asian negatively impacted both revenues and profitability for H1 2014.

However, the company's chairman remains positive about the future. "We believe the second half of the year will be more promising than the first."

The company has the right to develop six deposits in the south-west of Azerbaijan - Gadabay, Ordubad, Gosha Bulag, Gyzyl Bulag, Vezhnali, and Soyutlu- under a production sharing agreement signed in August 1997 with Azerbaijan's government.

The gold and silver produced there are sent to Switzerland for refining, and gold bars are delivered to the country and preserved by the government.

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