Anglo Asian Mining slips into the red as gold price dips

Anglo Asian Mining blamed falling gold prices and a slow start to the year's trading for a slide into the red, hitting its shares.The group, whose flagship Gedabek gold, silver and copper mine is in Azerbaijan, made a first half pre-tax loss of $7.5m against a profit of $4.2m a year ago.Anglo said it had a difficult start to the year, with slower than anticipated production in the first quarter and higher than expected operating costs.It added that the sector was still feeling the effects of the substantial reduction in gold prices last year."This reduction in gold price, coupled with the slow start to the year for Anglo Asian, has impacted both revenues and profitability for H1 2014," it said.But the group said gold production for 2014 significantly increased year-on-year at Gedabek from 17,497 ounces in the first half of 2013 to 27,054 ounces in the first half of this year.It also said it was in the early stages of bringing another project, Gosha, into production and starting to process its ore at Gedabek. The group also has a third gold exploration project, Ordubad, also in Azerbaijan.Chairman Khosrow Zamani said: "The second half of 2014 is looking more positive with production at Gedabek now stable at levels higher than seen at the start of the year."Shares fell 3.75p or 29.7% to 8.88p at 12:12 in London.