Early 2026 production is tracking in line with guidance as Demirli continues its ramp-up, with Xarxar and Garadag projects advancing in the development pipeline
Decision Focus
In 2025, Anglo Asian Mining (LSE: AAZ) commissioned two copper operations in separate locations within Azerbaijan: the Gilar underground copper-gold mine at Gedabek and the Demirli open-pit copper mine in the Karabakh region. Both moved from development to production in the same fiscal year. The operational signal for peer directors is not the financial turnaround—it is the simultaneous multi-site ramp-up execution model and what it reveals about sequencing discipline, tailings management, and concentrate logistics in a frontier mining jurisdiction.
90-Second Brief
As the week closes, anglo Asian Mining reported 7,915 tonnes of copper and 25,061 ounces of gold produced in 2025, driving revenue to $122.8 million and a pre-tax profit of $25.8 million. Copper concentrate shipments reached 29,695 dry metric tonnes, generating $54.5 million in sales. The company reinstated its dividend and returned to a positive net cash position. Early 2026 production is tracking in line with guidance as Demirli continues its ramp-up, with Xarxar and Garadag projects advancing in the development pipeline.
What Is Really Happening?
The deeper pattern is a deliberate portfolio repositioning. Management has stated the strategy is to evolve into a predominantly copper-focused producer with a multi-asset growth portfolio. Gilar and Demirli are the first two assets executing that thesis at production scale.
What makes this operationally notable is the complexity of the execution. Running simultaneous ramp-ups across an underground mine—with its ground support, ventilation, and stope sequencing demands—and an open-pit operation requiring waste push discipline and bench progression is a material management burden. The Gedabek contract area provided established infrastructure, which appears to have been a key enabler for Gilar. Demirli in Karabakh is a newer operating environment, adding logistical and geotechnical unknowns the company is still working through during ramp-up.
The concentrate shipment data adds a third layer. Moving 29,695 dry metric tonnes of copper concentrate out of landlocked Azerbaijan requires a functioning, multi-modal logistics chain—an infrastructure reality that shapes both cost per tonne and schedule risk in ways that headline production numbers alone do not capture.
Why It Matters for Mining Operations Directors
The direct peer lesson is sequencing risk management during multi-site commissioning. Most operations directors face pressure to accelerate brownfield expansions or bring new pits online against existing production obligations. Anglo Asian Mining elected to commission both Gilar and Demirli in 2025 rather than stagger them—a decision that compressed the ramp-up timeline but concentrated execution risk in a single year. The reported outcome was positive, but available disclosure does not describe what constraints emerged during ramp-up, leaving the full performance envelope uncharacterised.
Tailings storage capacity is the second operational thread. The company is progressing additional tailings storage at Gedabek as a parallel workstream alongside the Xarxar and Garadag development projects. For any operation expanding throughput in a multi-asset configuration, TSF capacity is a sequencing constraint that can override mine plan timelines independent of ore availability. The fact that tailings expansion is listed concurrently—not as a completed precondition—suggests an active constraint being managed in real time.
The cost signal also carries weight. The 2025 result benefited from favorable metals prices, and the company’s own disclosure acknowledges prior periods of negative margins and declining free cash flow. The 2025 result is therefore best read as a recovery baseline rather than a mature steady-state operating cost model.
Forward View
Three fronts are worth tracking as Demirli progresses through its 2026 ramp-up.
First, throughput stabilization at Demirli will indicate whether the simultaneous commissioning strategy absorbed hidden schedule risk or deferred it into the ramp-up tail. Tracking to guidance in early 2026 is an early positive signal, but new open-pit environments in less-established jurisdictions typically surface geotechnical or logistical constraints after initial commissioning milestones have passed.
Second, tailings storage capacity at Gedabek is the constraint most likely to determine timing for Xarxar and Garadag advancement. If TSF expansion lags the Gilar production ramp, it creates a throughput ceiling that mine development acceleration cannot override.
Third, the copper-focus strategy depends on Xarxar and Garadag translating from active development into resource conversion and scheduled production. Without published reserve data or production timelines for those assets, the multi-asset growth portfolio remains a stated intention rather than a confirmed operating expansion.
What Is Still Uncertain
Available disclosure does not include cost-per-tonne data for either Gilar or Demirli, so the operating cost profile of the ramp-up is not assessable. AISC contributions from each asset are unknown, and prior-period margin deterioration creates baseline uncertainty about how resilient current unit economics would be against a metals price correction.
The logistics infrastructure underpinning the concentrate shipment programme is also uncharacterised. Whether that chain carries geopolitical, transport corridor, or smelter offtake concentration risk is not addressed in available disclosure.
Geotechnical conditions at Demirli in Karabakh—a less established operating environment than Gedabek—are not described. Slope stability parameters and ground control requirements at a new open-pit in a frontier region carry inherent uncertainty that ramp-up phase reporting alone does not resolve.
One Question for Your Team
If you were simultaneously commissioning an underground and an open-pit copper operation in the same year, which constraint—tailings capacity, concentrate logistics, or geotechnical ground conditions at the newer site—would you identify as the highest-probability production ceiling, and has your ramp-up plan stress-tested that constraint explicitly against a twelve-month planning horizon?
Sources
- Yahoo — Anglo Asian Mining returns to profit as new copper operations drive 2025 growth (AAZ) (Link)
