BAKU

Azerbaijan has increased gold production in the first seven months of the year and eyes more output from gold deposits in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, liberated by Azerbaijan during the 44-day war with Armenia in autumn 2020.

Gold production rose 1.1 percent year-on-year to 2,058 kg in January-July, the State Statistics Committee said. Production of silver rose by 12.6 percent to 2,786 kg.

There are two state-owned gold mining companies in Azerbaijan – AzerGold and London-listed Anglo-Asian Mining Company PLC. They have reserves of over 256 kg of gold and over 194 kg of silver, as of August 1, 2021, the committee said.

Baku expects more gold output to be produced at deposits in the territories previously occupied by Armenian forces. The government is spending millions of dollars for infrastructure projects in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions that have been returned to central government control during a war last autumn.

The country’s President Ilham Aliyev said that the government had begun preparations for court proceedings to recover compensation from foreign companies for the illegal development of gold deposits in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

“This process has already begun. We have invited well-known international law firms, and now they are preparing court cases. Foreign companies have exploited our gold deposits – Soyudlu in the Kalbajar region and Vejnali in the Zangilan region, as well as in other places,” Aliyev told in an interview to the state TV.

Previously, 74 percent of the Soyudlu (ZOD) deposit was under the development of the Russian company GeoProMining, when the Kalbajar region in Nagorno-Karabakh was controlled by Armenian forces. The rest of the deposit is located in Armenia’s territory.

“We had no contacts with the Russian company, which had been the operator at the Soyudlu (Zod) field in recent years, but Azerbaijan will regain its rights to the main part of the field,” Ali Aliyev, the geological service at Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry head, told the Tribune.

He said that experts had also been making assessments of Vejnali and Gyzylbulag deposits.