Geological Exploration is Underway in the Dashkasan Iron Ore Deposit Group

AzerGold CJSC’s subsidiary Dashkasan Iron Ore (DDF) LLC successfully continues geological exploration under the project for exploiting the Dashkasan iron ore deposit group, the largest ferrous metal deposit complex in our country. For the past period, as a result of the geological exploration in the Southeast and Northwest deposits included in the group, an increase of 69.7 mln tons of underground reserves was achieved. Thereat, the total mass of underground ore reserves of the Dashkasan iron ore deposit group has reached 309.16 mln tons. For the next stage, British Micon International has prepared a 21-year plan for exploiting the Southeast and Northwest deposits by the open pit technique. As part of geological exploration, the next goal is to bring the property life to 25-30 years. Thus, extensive geological exploration is underway on the flanks of the Southeast and Northwest deposits, and preliminary exploration is performed in 3 more fields - Southwest, "Damirov" and Dardara. It should be noted that the ferrous metal ores extracted from the mines under the Dashkasan Iron Ore project will be used as raw materials for the three-stage production chain planned to be built in the coming years. Thus, it is planned to build a processing plant in the Dashkasan region to manufacture iron ore concentrate, and production plants for the manufacture of intermediate product Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and finished product Hot Briquetted Iron HBI) in the Goygol region. This is aimed at replacing metal scraps recycled in the country with high-quality raw materials, reducing the dependence of the metallurgical industry on imports, and meeting the growing demand for the manufacture of export-oriented steel products.