Anglo Asian Mining publishes maiden resource for Zafar

The AIM-traded firm said the Zafar deposit is located in the central region of its Gedabek contract area in the west of the country, about 1.5 kilometres from the existing Gedabek processing facilities.

It reported 8.47 million tonnes of mineralisation, with average grades of 0.6% copper, 0.47% zinc and 0.3 grams of gold per tonne.

That made for an in-situ mineral resource of 51,000 tonnes of copper, 82,000 ounces of gold and 40,000 tonnes of zinc.

The company reported more than 200 metres of continuous mineralisation in the thickest intersection, adding that 42 drill holes with a total length of 20,418 metres were used for the resource estimate, of which 28 holes intersected mineralisation.

Total drilling to date was nearly 27,000 metres, out of a planned 40,000 metres.

“Zafar's maiden mineral resource estimate is extremely encouraging and will help underpin the company's future long-term production growth,” said chief executive officer Reza Vaziri.

“Located in close proximity to our existing Gedabek processing plant, there are significant operational and geographical synergies which will help us rapidly develop this resource.

“We are now highly focused on completing the final mineral reserve estimation of the deposit by the end of the year and successfully bringing Zafar into production as soon as possible.”

At 1013 BST, shares in Anglo Asian Mining were down 2.68% at 136.25p.