Anglo Asian Mining (AAZ.L) released assay results from the Gilar deposit, which is part of the greater Gedabek project and located just seven kilometer from the company’s processing facilities. The prospect has been the subject of in excess of 32,000 meters of drilling completed in in excess of 100 holes.
Recent drill results confirm the presence of thick intervals of copper-gold mineralization with hole 22GLDD118 returning 67 meters containing 2.02 g/t gold, 1.58% copper and 1.58% zinc from a depth of approximately 327 meters. The relative depth of the mineralization should not be an issue as the Gilar zone could host an initial starter pit with lower grade mineralization, or the company could easily drift a tunnel to reach the underground mineralization (the latter scenario is more likely). A shaft will not be necessary.
An initial resource calculation was completed at Gilar, and the underground resource currently contains 3.9 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.08 g/t gold, 0.55% copper and 0.60% zinc for a total of 135,500 ounces of gold, 48 million pounds copper and just over 50 million pounds of zinc. The recent drill results were encountered in the ‘lowest zone’ of the resource which hosts 0.9 million tonnes of rock. That’s just 24% of the tonnage, but it contains about 35% of the metals. This lowest zone remains open in all directions so it’s easy to imagine Anglo Asian could add another million tonnes there which would likely allow Gilar to reach critical mass.
Anglo Asian is also still aiming to double the capacity of its flotation plant from Q3 2023 on, which will help to also process ore coming from the Zafar deposit, a 6.8 million tonne resource with an average grade of 0.5% copper and 0.4 g/t gold, which should come online in the second half of next year. The total capex related to this expansion is just US$2.5M and Anglo Asian can easily finance this with its own incoming cash flows.
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