LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Azerbaijan-focussed gold, copper and silver producer Anglo Asian Mining announced the acquisition of exploration data and associated studies and reports from AzerGold on Thursday.

The AIM-traded firm said the data relates to the Garadagh and Xarxar contract areas, two of its new concessions, which were granted following the recently-received parliamentary ratification, with AzerGold having been the previous concession holder.

It described the acquisition of the contract areas as "transformational" for Anglo Asian, underpinning its strategic objective to transition into a copper-focused mining company with mid-tier production status.

The board said it would also allow the company to complete its three-to-five year development plan.

Anglo Asian said the data acquired included geochemical and geophysical data, including maps and interpretative reports.

Substantial core drilling and data interpretation had been carried out on the contract areas by AzerGold, including 9,645 chemical assays taken from 23,454 metres of Garadagh drill core and 805 assays taken from 4,923 metres of Xarxar drill core.

Anglo Asian would also receive an initial mining scoping study for Garadagh based on a preliminary mineral resource estimate, with various options for mine development including open pit designs, initial mining schedules and an outline metallurgical flow sheet.

An environmental and socio-economic baseline assessment was also carried out at Garadagh, and was included in the material.

The company said it agreed to pay $3.3m for the data for Garadagh, and $0.7m for Xarxar.

It said 25% of the fees was payable immediately, with the remaining 75% payable after three years, or if earlier for each respective deposit, the balance of the purchase price on the approval of the company's development and production programme for the deposit in accordance with its production sharing agreement.

The cost of the data would be added to the operating and capital costs of the contract areas, and be deductible in calculating profit production.

Anglo Asian said it would now undertake a detailed review of all available data to evaluate the best approach to develop all of its new deposits.

Once completed, the strategy would be announced to the market to achieve a mid-tier production profile.

A programme was planned for any confirmatory drilling required to verify the data for Garadagh.

In addition to the data acquisition, initial exploration had started at the Xarxar deposit, which the board said was "proceeding at pace" to get the development underway.

An exploration adit was constructed at Xarxar, and tunnelling had begun, with a core drill programme also being planned for Xarxar.

"We are pleased to have reached agreement with Azergold to acquire this data, which is another milestone in our development of the new concession areas," said chief executive officer Reza Vaziri.

"We will soon begin a detailed geological analysis of Garadagh and Xarxar.

"This will enable our team to formulate the best approach to developing these assets which we look forward to announcing to the market once finalised."

At 1102 BST, shares in Anglo Asian Mining were down 0.01% at 86.99p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.

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