Anglo Asian Mining shares jump as Azerbaijan gov't green lights tailing dam build

Anglo Asian Mining's share price surged on Wednesday after the gold, copper and silver miner moved one step closer to starting construction on the final part of its tailings dam in Azerbaijan.

The company received technical confirmation and a positive environmental report from the government that Gedabek tailing dam, which is almost full, is stable and can now be raised by a further 7.0 metres to its final design height.

"The permission to begin construction is subject to certain administrative formalities by the Government which are expected to be completed shortly," AAM said in a statement.

"We are not expecting the final administrative formalities required before the permission is issued to take very long," said AAM's chief executive Reza Vaziri.

"This achievement marks another significant milestone for Anglo Asian in its return to normalised trading. With an exciting portfolio of development assets, we remain committed to our growth strategy of transitioning to a mid-tier miner and generating significant value for all of our stakeholders."

On Tuesday, AAM announced that it had entered into a prepayment agreement whereby Singaporean commodity trading giant Trafigura would buy $5m of copper concentrate, in return for exclusivity over part of the future production from the Demirli mine.

The stock was up 17% at 67.94p by 1146 BST.