BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 19. Azerbaijan may stabilize gold production by putting into work new deposits of valuable metals in 2024-2026, Trend reports via a government source.
Anglo Asian Mining PlC (AAM, operator of eight contractual deposits) and AzerGold (10 deposits of precious metals and polymetallic ores on its balance sheet) will show a decline in production in 2023, but may return to indicators comparable to the results of 2022 in 2024 and keep it up during 2025-2026.
The data of the State Statistics Committee shows that Azerbaijan produced 3.1 tons of gold in 2022, which is 5.3 percent less year-on-year.
Azerbaijan produced 2.5 tons of gold from January through November 2023 (a decline of 16.5 percent year-on-year).
"The decline in gold production in 2023 is due to the natural depletion of the flagship deposits of AAM (Gedabey deposit) and AzerGold (Chovdar deposit) and the fact that operating companies focused more on various technical and technological work related to the preparation for the commissioning of new precious metals deposits in 2024," the source explained.
The government expects Azerbaijan's gold production to reach at least 3.1 tons again in 2024, and exceed this level in 2025-2026.
At the same time, gold production in Azerbaijan may fall to 2.7 tons in 2027 (according to the pessimistic scenario related to technological and geological forecasts).
Earlier in 2023, AAM announced a forthcoming decline in gold production by 2027-2028, which may be compensated by a significant increase in production of copper and other base metals with high prices on the world market.
