LONDON (Alliance News) - Anglo Asian Mining PLC Thursday revised expected production from its new agitation leaching plant at Gedabek in Azerbaijan and dropped its 2014 gold production target despite significantly increasing production in its first quarter.
The miner said gold production increased 32% in the three months ended March 31 to 11,312 ounces from 8,585 ounces with 8,597 ounces coming from its new agitation leaching plant and 2,715 ounces from its heap leach operations.
The company said it achieved gold sales of 10,403 ounces at an average of USD1,303 per ounce during the period.
However, Anglo Asian revised down its full-year 2014 gold production target to between 62,000 and 67,000 ounces from between 80,000 to 90.000 ounces previously, as the company revised its expectations from the new leaching plant and its heap leach operations due to lower grade ore recoveries.
The company said that it has taken steps to improve production, including a continuous Knelson concentrator which was installed at the agitation leaching plant in March with early results showing enhanced gold recovery from high-copper sulphide ore along with reduced cyanide consumption at the site.
Anglo Asian said its silver production in dore totalled 3,890 ounces during the period and copper production from its SART processing operations increased by 50% to 141 tonnes of copper compared to its previous quarter.
The company also said that it is making good progress at its second mining project in Azerbaijan with 1,095 tonnes of ore mined and 250 tonnes of ore sent to Gedabek for processing during the first quarter.
In January, the company said that despite increasing its production to 52,068 ounces in 2013, compared from 50,025 ounces the previous year, the company failed to achieve its original production target for the year of 60,000 ounces.
In December, the company had warned of lower full-year production than expected after lower gold recoveries than it hoped in the fourth quarter from its Gedabek mine.
Anglo Asian shares were down 13.8% to 16.82 pence, putting it in the top three AIM fallers on Thursday.
By Tom McIvor; tommcivor@alliancenews.com; @TomMcIvor1
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Anglo Asian (AAZ)