Good morning, and welcome to the Anglo Asian Mining PLC investor presentation. Throughout the quarter presentation, investors will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged, and they can be submitted at any time via the Q&A tab situated in the right corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press Send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received in the meeting itself, but the company can view the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to make the following point. Today, the presenting team, we have Stephen Westhead, VP, and Bill Morgan, CFO. I'd now like to hand you over to Bill to start the presentation. Good morning to you, sir.
Okay. Good morning, everybody. I'm going to quickly present a few slides as an introduction to the company for those who do not know us. I will then give you a few key takeaways from our recently released interim results and our Q3 update, which is released today. I will then hand over to Steve, who will take you through our strategy and give you an update on our operations. Okay. We only operate in Azerbaijan as a company, where we have been for over 25 years. The group has recently entered a new phase of growth with the opening of two new mines this year, Gadir and Damirli. We also have a large resource base to support our growth in the coming years. We are very experienced in Azerbaijan, which is a low-cost country in which to operate.
We are a long-established and extremely experienced and tight-knit team. Reza is a businessman in Azerbaijan, who together with Governor Sununu , founded the business in the late 1990s. Together, the directors and management own approximately 40% of the group, which obviously very much aligns our interest with that of our fellow shareholders. Azerbaijan is very much a comer. It's politically very stable with a fast developing and growing economy. It's very different from the rest of the Stans and feels much closer to Europe. Baku feels like a Southern European city. There are some interesting political changes happening in the region which we feel will benefit the country and us. This is fundamentally the Southern Caucasus region increasingly asserting its independence. We have 8 licenses or contract areas, as we call them, in Azerbaijan.
The two active ones are Gedabek, which has historically been our center of operations, and Damirli, where we have just started production. We also have two very well-defined mineral resources in the Xarxar and Garadagh contract areas. The rest are exploration plays, with the exception of Gosha, where there is a small narrow vein mine. Okay. We released our interim results last month. The first half includes a full six months of our legacy mining operations with only two months contribution from Gilar. We started production in May. As you can see, revenues grew to almost $41 million, which are flowed through to profits and cash generation, both of which were excellent. We also invested $8.4 million in the period, which was mostly Damirli and Gilar.
Q3 has obviously seen a dramatic increase in production due to a full quarter production from Gilar and Damirli, which started in July. We produced over 6,700 ounces of gold, which is over 50% more than produced in the previous six months. Copper production started to take off with 2,287 tons produced compared to 1,188 tons in the previous six months. We've done a lot more this quarter. We also made good operational progress on projects such as upgrading and expanding the flotation plant and other things. Net debt remains modest with an increase of only $1.2 million. This is despite receiving no revenue from Damirli in the quarter. The Damirli inventory at the end of September will generate over $6 million at current copper prices.
Well, that's a very short introduction from me, and I now hand you over to Stephen, who's gonna talk about our strategy and current operations.
Okay. Thank you everybody for joining wherever you are around the world. Good morning, evening, afternoon. Appreciate your time looking at this webinar, and thanks to the host as well for organizing it. Going forward. Okay. Our strategy to become a mid-tier copper and gold producer, multi-asset, mid-tier copper gold producer. We've got a five-year objective to effectively be in a position of producing in the order of 36,000 tons of copper metal per annum. How are we going to do that? You know, it's through sequential opening of new mining operations. This year, we've opened two new mining operations, Gilar underground in the Gedabek contract area and the Damirli open pit in the Damirli contract area.
We'll talk as well a little bit more in detail about those as we go forward, and then the future projects as well. The future projects are progressing in line with expectation, and we'll talk about the Xarxar and Garadagh copper projects, which are scheduled and planned to enter production in 2027, 2028 and 2029, 2030, respectively. Those deposits both have JORC-classified mineral resources, with Xarxar hosting 119,000 tons of copper and Garadagh over 900,000 tons of copper. Clearly they're different scale projects, but you'll understand how they'll dovetail together going forward in the presentation. Obviously, to achieve any growth like this one has to have its base foundation, i.e. the mineral resources in the ground. We have that. Okay. We've been able to demonstrate that.
Again, I'll talk about the figures a little bit further going forward. Even beyond that, our exploration potential is huge. We have the resources. We have the team that have delivered technical projects before. Lastly, it's okay, we have the people, we have the resources, but the financing. You know, we need to ensure that financing is available to develop these mines and processing facilities, and over the last few years, the company's really put ourselves in a fairly strong position with local banks being supportive. We also have preliminary, ongoing discussions with EBRD and other, major Western banks. We've also set up various communications for prepayment of copper concentrate from our off-takers. They're in place.
The copper off-takers as well, we're in discussions about the opportunities for further project finance. Many of the audience will be aware that we purchased some Caterpillar equipment for underground Gilar, and for that we actually achieved Cat Financial out of the U.S.A. We're the first company in the Caucasus region to do that. There was quite an extensive due diligence, and recent meetings with Caterpillar reaffirmed the availability of equipment. Going forward again, that's gonna be fairly critical, and we can talk about that as we go forward. Our ESG, environmental social governance, has been strengthened ensuring best practice. We've developed our teams for sustainability and environmental, and we now have a certification by an independent group, Digbee.
On the back of that as well, there's also possible future financing opportunities. We're well positioned to achieve this growth strategy. One thing to underline, that's the last line of the slide, Anglo Asian Mining has never diluted shareholders to fund new projects. Right now, given what I've just spoken about the financing, that's the continued thinking. Okay, moving forward. Okay, I spoke about the resources of some of the projects that we have. You know, we have over 1 million tons of copper in the ground and over 400,000 ounces of gold with exploration projects working in parallel to that. You know, we have our legacy projects, i.e. at Gedabek, which is our operating quarter in the northwestern part of the country, which hosts Gilar and Zafer.
To the north of that we have the Xarxar and Garadagh contract areas, and in there you can see sort of the total measured and indicated category mineral resources for copper and gold. Again, you know, high level confidence that the material is there, and that is something that is fundamental for us. Beyond this, quite clearly our exploration portfolio is really quite significant. Looking at the project by project. Gilar entered production in May of this year and commenced a new underground mine that's in the Gedabek contract area. The project itself is located about six kilometers from the Gedabek processing facilities, and as such, there was no requirement to construct new processing facilities specifically for this project. We're able to use the current processing facilities.
The project is now delivering 2,000 tons ore per day, in excess of that actually, following entering its production in May of this year. Basically it's then delivering sort of that 50,000-60,000 ton target, plus stockpile material as well, and that's gonna be the target going forward for next year. Sort of that 60,000-65,000 tons is where we're looking at. The current JORC mineral resource estimate shows that the deposit hosts 54,000 tons of copper and over a quarter of a million ounces of gold. The deposit itself is split into a number of zones. Zone one and two in the upper levels, zone three medium, and zone four is the lower zone. It's zone four that we've targeted first.
That one was carrying the highest combined grade of nearly 2.5 million tons at 1.5% copper and 1.8 grams per ton gold. Following on from the startup of the operation as well, in addition to what is being processed, we actually now have over 70,000 tons of ore on stockpile grading at 3.8% copper and 2 grams gold. That was at the end of September of this year. Now, why did we have that? It was to do effectively with the processing facilities and the copper grade was extremely high and we've had to upgrade the filter press. We can talk about that a little bit later in the future projects.
In terms of production tunneling and mine development, the team's done a phenomenal job since May. You know, we've got over 2,900 meters of access tunneling, spiral ramp development, and ventilation tunneling. And then once we've been there, we've got 2,300 meters of mining operation tunneling, so that's footwall drives, cross cuts, et cetera. So it's a phenomenal achievement of what we've done in quite a short space of time. Now with the development of the mine itself, there's ongoing underground construction of various aspects of infrastructure. Moving on to Damirli. The Damirli project is sort of central western Azerbaijan in the Agdere region of Karabakh. We started commissioning production in July of this year.
It was a previously mined asset, and did have some existing infrastructure, albeit we've had to do quite a significant amount of refurbishment work and planning work to actually bring it into production. The contract area was acquired in 2022 along with the Xarxar and Garadagh contract areas. And like I said, it hosts the open pit mine, plus around about a 6 million ton per annum flotation plant, with a mining fleet and a tailings dam. Clearly when we went into the area, we had to establish all of our infrastructure to allow the staff to actually be efficient in being able to work there.
Apart from the logistical side, we've also now set up our laboratories, metallurgical test work facilities, and we've got laboratories there for various mineral analysis and further tests. We're trying to constantly improve and upgrade and better understand the Damirli deposit itself. We basically looked at a preliminary resource, but that was based on any unverified data of various classifications of resource category, measured, indicated, inferred, and in fact unclassified. What we had to do when we wanted to start this operation, we needed to understand really what the upper levels of that exposed mineralization in the pit could deliver.
Following on from the geological mapping and the various aspects of the field work that we were doing, structural studies, et cetera, we carried out 9,000 meters of reverse circulation drilling, and that defined a startup tonnage of around about 5.5 million tons at 0.5% copper. Mining, we're doing conventional drill and blast. We have blast hole drilling, blasting and mining contractors all in place. We've got our own company teams now supervising all of that operations from the viewpoint of exploration, mining geology, mining engineering, planning and survey. There's a lot of work going on to better understand the nature of the deposit, because there is quite a significant grade variation. There's also quite a significant variation in oxide and sulfide styles of mineral content.
Now, when we're looking at flotation, clearly, you know, the grade and the sulfide percentage or oxide levels can impact on that as well. That's what we're further trying to understand, and we're looking now to actually start to develop our own block model on our own data sets to better understand that going forward. Obviously, we're operational, so our water and power supply is all connected. Our control systems are all in place and operational. Key equipment has been tested, so we have the ore feeder, the various mills, flotation cells, pumps, et cetera. The tailings dam has recently had some approval as well for the interim operation until we actually proceed with the construction of tailings dam number two. That tailings dam number two has been fully defined.
We've outlined it, we've carried out all of the various geotechnical works that are required to bring that into operation, which we plan to do as soon as possible. Moving forward, back up towards the Gedabek area. The two future copper projects are Xarxar and Garadagh. Xarxar, we produced a maiden JORC mineral resource estimate in February 2024. The site is situated very close to our operations at Gedabek. The contract area, in fact, abuts the northern part of our Gedabek contract area itself. The advantages there is that we can then utilize shared infrastructure, staffing and administrative support, et cetera.
The mineral resource potential, you can see in the upper right image the drilling that we did on that particular section and an underground tunnel as well, hence that horizontal line, which effectively then assisted with the development of an in-situ resource of 119,000 tons of copper. Now, that's as well within an RPEEE pit. That's reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction according to the JORC code of reporting of mineral resources. There is further deeper potential as well. In the first stage, it will be lending itself to an open pit operation, we believe. First production then would be planned for 2027-2028. We've carried out hyperspectral scanning on all of the drill core from both Xarxar and Garadagh to assess the geometallurgy.
Really that's to better assess the geology and the mineralization from a geometallurgical point of view so that we can be thinking about our processing methodologies and how we're going to be operating that project going forward. We'll also be preparing 3-D alteration models and preliminary mine design. We've been working with various equipment suppliers who have also offered their support in terms of optimizing mining fleets, road haulage options, cycle times, et cetera. All of that will form part of the ongoing studies. The next phase of drilling would define the geotechnical parameters of the rock, hydrogeology, and rock characteristics overall suitable for the mining design and mining plans, identifying the land that would be needed for the process infrastructure, rock stockpiles, et cetera.
That's really the next stage of the operation here at Khaha. Beyond that, in the immediate surroundings of Khaha, there's a lot of alteration exploration potential. We've been looking at various geological models of formation of this type of mineralization and have identified through the exploration department a number of other targets that could potentially contribute to future production from this particular area. Moving on to Garadagh. Khaha and Garadagh are really quite close, you know, within 1.5 kilometers of each other. We produced a maiden JORC mineral resource, which was published on the 24th of September 2024. This deposit was extensively explored during the Soviet era and post-Soviet era.
We have a significant amount of data from the previous owner, over 9,500 chemical assays, from some 23.5 kilometers of core drilling. That's where we then needed to do this hyperspectral scanning because the way certain drill core is logged and interpreted can be varying between different geological teams. What we're trying to do there was provide some consistency to allow for the 3D modeling to actually start to take place. There's initial mining scoping studies, based on open pit designs, and multi options for metallurgical processing as well. All of the historical drill core was transferred to the company, so we have access to all that data.
We will be doing a lot more assessment of that drill core itself, as well as the requirement of further drilling to twin and validate the historical data as well as new data for ourselves. The total resource in situ, about 900,000 tons of copper. Originally there were two mine designs carried out, one containing 43 million tons of ore and another one, 90 million tons of ore. You can see the copper figures there in the presentation, 9-year life and 18-year period. The metal prices that were originally used for those particular projects were significantly lower than where we are today. The next stage is really to see what the impact of the metal prices are on these various designs.
We're now in the proceeding and due to start the confirmation of the geotechnical studies, hydrogeological studies, geotech for the metallurgical sampling as well. We now have actually signed contracts with foreign-based consulting groups who have experience with managing porphyries, managing the various styles of approach that we are considering. In terms of that approach, Khaha, yes, I referenced it would be an open pit, yes. Processing-wise, it's likely that we are now considering to have a copper heap leach system. The question then is whether that copper heap leach system would also be expanded into catering for the feed mineralization from Garadagh, yes or no. Quite clearly the scale of these operations, the footprint impacts are really quite large.
We've been looking at various aspects of further test work for the process technologies, apart from just pure copper heap leach, but the introduction of bioleaching. Then on the back end of that, obviously, having a solvent extraction electrowinning plant, which would actually then deliver cathode copper metal. When one looks at sort of the differences between flotation plants, which would require a large-scale tailings dam, and the heap leach options, there's quite a compelling argument for looking at the heap leach. When we started to think about the scale of the open pits, does it make more sense to go underground? We're actually looking at that as an option as well, an underground scenario, as well as various forms of IPR, in-place recovery.
In other words, you know, are we able to effectively have a leach circuit based underground? That's something that we're needing to do going forward. In fact, we have it in the schedule to actually construct a small test mine that we're working on at the moment in terms of getting ready to submit that through to the government for approval. The image on the bottom right, you can see the position of Khaha in the southwest corner, and then Garadagh, the larger cluster of red dots, and then Jeyir. Effectively, that's a 10-kilometer belt of copper mineralization. All those black dots effectively represent where there's surface sampling of 0.1% copper on surface.
In fact, further to the southwest from Khaha, we move into the northern part of the Gedabek contract area where we have another porphyry target known as Almalytala that we actually defined as part of a ZTEM helicopter survey we did, which is an electromagnetic method, that we carried out some years ago. It's all starting to come together for the future. Excuse me. Our 2025 guidance, underpinned by two new mines and upgrades to the processing facilities. 2025 has already been a milestone year, with Anglo Asian now becoming a multi-asset producer. You know, we're operating from three mines now, open pit and underground, with production ramping up at Damirli and Gilar, and delivering extremely strong grades from Gilar especially.
The ramp-up period obviously for Damirli has been subject to a lot of upgrades, equipment upgrades, trying to bring everything into play. Now, just from that viewpoint, you know, the processing plant at Damirli is not yet fully commissioned. We're doing it in a staged approach. That would be continuing during Q4. Gedabek processing plant upgrades progressed well. As I referenced, because of the high copper grades coming through the flotation plant from the Gilar deposit, we've added and installed a new filter press to cater for the additional copper capacity coming through. That really was the precursor to what will be a much bigger project. We have planned a larger flotation plant upgrade project.
The capital cost of that is in the order of around about $1.5 million-$2 million, which will then see the implementation of two further filter presses, a lot more flotation cells, and an overall upgrade. We've had contractors on site recently looking at that type of project, and we're expecting to be concluding those agreements in the very near future with the intent of having that then complete during Q1. In summary, from our guidance on the back of what we've been able to deliver so far, the company expects a 2025 production of copper 8,100-9,000 tons and gold 25,000-28,000 ounces. Our investment case.
Obviously, we have a range of audience, probably existing shareholders, hopefully new shareholders, and those who are associated with the industry. As Bill referenced in the opening speech, we're a well-established company, mining company here in Azerbaijan with extensive resources transitioning to a multi-asset, mid-tier, copper-focused producer. We've opened two mines this year, significantly growing our production and our base to actually operate. We're a very different company this year to where we were last year. When we've given our projections, you know, we've been able to deliver on our timescales and what we're wanting to do. It's an exciting asset portfolio that we have. I've already mentioned the quantities of metal in the ground, but beyond that as well, our exploration portfolio is really quite phenomenal.
The pipeline of projects coming through, you know, the Gedabek, Garadagh, Damirli upgrades, that's all the near-term type work that we are working on actively all the time currently. Beyond that, you know, we've got a pipeline of projects from all eight contract areas that will continue to deliver projects going forward for the company and our shareholders. We have a long-term track record. You know, the company has discovered new mineral deposits, evaluated them, and brought six mines into production. We've done that without diluting any shareholder from a value point of view. You know, we have a highly experienced team that have actually gone through the construction of open pit, underground, copper, gold, the associated processes in the business to actually make that work. We've got the core team.
We're expanding our team. As a base now, we've got nearly 2,000 employees and contractors working with us. Because obviously as one grows, having all of the technicals is one side, but we need all that non-technical aspect as well to come through to support the business growth. That's where, you know, the disciplined approach to the funding starts to come into play as well. You know, we have a well-structured, well-planned approach that is really defined to deliver in the most cost-effective way, but profitable as possible. Historically, you know, we've always been a very low-cost producer, generally in the lowest quartile, and that's something that really we still would like to take into consideration going forward.
I think overall, I wanted to set the scene to, you know, demonstrate what has happened and why our Q3 results are like they are, but also sort of give some of the future and the excitement that the company's got going forward. You know, the team and the shareholder base can all be part of that exciting growth story.
Okay. Thank you very much.
That's great. Well, thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions. You can do so just by using the Q&A tab that's situated on the top right-hand side of the screen. Just while the company take a few moments to read the questions that have been submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via our investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received questions throughout today's presentation, and what I'll do is I'll just hand back to the team to run through the Q&A, and then I'll pick up from you both at the end.
Okay. Well, I'll kick off with a few of the financial questions that have been asked to give Steve a bit of a break, and let me go through them here. First question is, when do you expect the business to be cash flow positive? The answer to that is next month. We were actually cash flow positive in the first half. The reason we were not cash flow positive in the third quarter was we were unable to sell Damirli concentrate. Everything is now in place for us to be able to sell Damirli concentrate as from next month. When we start selling the product from Damirli, we will be cash flow positive, and our forecasts show that there will be a significant reduction in net debt between now and the end of the year.
Second question is, can copper grades through each mine be shown in RNS tables alongside the gold grades already shown? When we looked at the RNS, when it was finally finished, literally in the last couple of days, we felt that could go in, but it was probably a bit late. The answer to that is yes, we will be showing that in future. Regarding copper, the company is going to have to double its record production achieved in Q3 in the fourth quarter in order to meet the minimum guidance it has recently given the market. Is that going to be possible? The answer to that is we believe so. If you look at the numbers year to date end of September, we produced 3,475 tons of copper.
To get to the mid-range of our copper guidance, we would have to produce 5,000 tons in the final quarter. We believe that's possible with 3,000 tons through Damirli and 2,000 tons from Gedabek. Regarding our gold guidance, we produced 18,912 ounces in the year to date to end of September, which will give us around about 7,500 ounces between or in the final quarter. We believe that is possible at Gedabek. Right. Over to you, Steve, I think to take a few questions.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Bill. There was a pre-submitted question, name withheld. What progress has been made at Garadagh, and when do you think you'll start construction? Obviously I've spoken about that during this presentation. Our approach is now to really understand the project gonna be an open pit underground and to firm up on the processing methods. All of that work and the studies is all ongoing currently and, you know, as stated, we'd still like to start some production by 2029, 2030. Depending on the process method, obviously lead time on equipment is different, but we're pulling together all of those various project aspects. Okay. Thank you. Another pre-submitted question on Gilar. They've got any indication of possible gold deposit or further expansion of it.
Gilar is obviously a copper gold project, especially that lower zone four that I mentioned. However, the upper levels, zones one and two, do contain copper and, previously we reported some gold vein systems adjacent to the Gilar property on surface. Given where metal prices are today, both gold and copper, quite clearly, the modeling work that was done for that Gilar resource model will need to be updated. We've recently strengthened our team with some technical geologists and mining engineers who would also then be starting to look at that. Yes, I would be hopeful for an expansion of the gold situation at Gilar going forward.
Okay, thank you for that question.
Question here from Stan M. When exactly was the ball mill installed operation at Damirli? It's about two weeks ago, and at end of the week, about two weeks ago. We now have the SAG mill and one flotation line working, and now the SAG mill and the ball mill working as well. Again, this is what I was saying. You know, it's a development process of trying to bring everything back into being on stream. And it's a big job. To answer that question, about two weeks ago.
Okay. Thank you. Okay.
Do you want me to take a couple, Steve, now?
Yeah, sure. Thank you.
Okay. I've got two questions here from a Chris L and a Paul H, which is basically the same question. Sorry. Do you have any plans to start paying dividends, and what is our dividend policy? I will not comment on when we are going to resume paying dividends because I think that would be dividend guidance, which it would be unwise to give. However, we are shareholders along with the rest of you, and we very much like our dividends. As you can see, the company is starting to return to very much robust financial health following the episodes of the last couple of years. We will plan to start paying dividends really as soon as we feel that the company is in a robust financial position to be able to do so.
I think that's as much as I'm prepared to say about dividends. There's a question here from Gabby K. What are the corporate plus royalty rates? We don't actually pay a royalty. We actually have a production sharing agreement, which basically we pay in physical metal. Now, it's a pretty complicated agreement, and I won't go into detail here, but basically, we are paying an effective royalty of 12.75% of our production as a royalty to the government, although that can change. That arrangement goes back to the production sharing agreement, which goes back to when the company was originally set up in the late 1990s. It's been completely and utterly stable since then. There's been no attempt to change it, and our production sharing agreement is in accordance with the law of Azerbaijan.
It is actually the law of Azerbaijan. As I say, very, very stable regime, and currently, we're paying a royalty of, or not paying a royalty, we're paying an effective royalty as part of our production share of 12.75%. When will production guidance for 2026 be available? That's from David C. We are still very much working on our production guidance, and we hope that we will issue that guidance early next year. Thomas D. Will the cost of refurbishing the Damirli plant be counted against the rental payments? The answer to that is yes. We've got a mechanism where we can actually offset our refurbishment costs against the initial rental payments.
Shall I take a couple, Bill?
Sorry. Do you wanna do a couple more now, Steve?
Yeah, sure. Let's have a look. There's a question here from John C. The Damirli plant had a recovery rate of 54% of copper, 711 tons of 1,307, and produced a concentrate grade of 15.6. The Gedabek plant far outstripped the performance this quarter. 88% recovery produced a concentrate of 23%. This benefits from the SART plant that presumably Damirli does not have. That's correct. Damirli does not have a SART plant. However, that recovery as well was purely a function from the flotation plant predominantly. Yes, it was supported by the SART, but not with Gilar ore. Effectively, this is purely a function of copper grade. Okay.
That's where I was talking before about the situation with looking at the oxide sulfide ratios and also the copper grades, 'cause generally the higher the copper grade, the more efficient the flotation can be. To the last part of that question then, what recovery rate and grade of concentrates are expected from Damirli once the plant is settled and running efficiently, or is it simply not known? Might modifications be needed at Damirli? It's not that it's simply not known, but we're unable at the moment to say hand on heart where we are with the feed. Let's wait until the plant is fully operational, up and running, and we've got a better handle on the geological model.
Essentially, as I say, that difference between the Gedabek plant and the Damirli plant was grade, as well as the fact that the flotation plant at Gedabek has been in operation for a long period of time. We understand the stable operations, whereas Damirli is being refurbished. I wouldn't mind doing another one, Bill. Sorry.
Okay. I've got one here from Guido B. Bill, can you confirm going forward when dividends get resumed, that 25% of free cash flow will be returned to shareholders? I cannot comment on that because that's all part of our future dividend policy, and that dividend policy was a dividend policy for a very different company as we were back then. I think you would have to wait until we've decided to restart our dividends, and obviously then we will announce what annual dividend policy will be. There's another one here. Okay. John C. The RNS says we sold 581 ounces of gold on an average of $1,343 per ounce, including government share. That's $17.7 million.
The RNS also says that 5.797 dry metric tons of concentrate from Gedabek fetched $15.5 million. That total is $33.2 million. The last table in the RNS says revenue was $27.8 million. Please, can you explain the discrepancy? The discrepancy is due to the fact that you are not comparing like with like. The figure of $33.2 million is the revenue for the quarter. The figure of $27.8 million is technically sales proceeds received rather than revenue, although we called it revenue because we think our shareholders will more understand that. To get from the $33.2 million to the $27.8 million, you would have to adjust for basically your opening debtors and for sales proceeds. It's not a like for like comparison.
You are comparing revenue, which is on an accruals basis, to sales proceeds received in the cash flow, which is obviously on a cash flow basis. That's that one. Philip, what is your view on gold and copper prices for the remainder of this year and into next? We are very conservative on our view on gold and copper prices when we do our forecasts. I think that's fair to say that we don't spend a lot of time thinking about what the copper and gold prices are, although obviously given the world we live in, we think that we can be fairly bullish on them.
Shall I do a couple, Bill?
Yeah, sure.
There's one here from Walter K. AAZ has had minimal CapEx over the past seven years. When will the company provide CapEx guidance for achieving the strategic plan, given the requirement for two new tailings dams and further extensive PP&E? We're actually firming up our overall strategic plan at the moment. I referenced as well the various options that we have for project funding and capital financing within the presentation. When we have this firmed up, certainly we will be presenting the CapEx figures going forward. However, we've been looking at obviously all of the construction programs that we have, the Gedabek plant upgrade, for example, the two tailings dams you referenced, one at Temeliy and one at Gedabek.
The heap leach scenarios and mining scenarios for Xarxar and Garadagh. We're trying to finalize those CapEx figures. Obviously, we have quite high-level figures, but that's not something we'd want to put into the market without reaffirming that. We will be doing it in due course. Ian J. Given the price of gold, are you looking to revive exploration at your mainly gold-based tenements such as Ordubad? I seem to recall you thought it might be a large-scale porphyry system. Yes. Thank you, Ian. I totally agree with you. The gold is significantly important to us. If you go back into our Ordubad reports, it's actually the deposit known as Piazbashi, which was a vein gold system that we're looking at.
We also have, not just in Ordubad, we have narrow vein, high-grade gold potential in Gosha and Vejnali as well. What I've been doing with the team is just really trying to assess the different styles of mineralization that we have. Obviously, we have sort of the bulk copper in inverted commas projects such as Damirli, Xarxar, Garadagh. There's the vein gold systems that we're needing to really look at and pull forward. Yes, they're on our radar. Yes, we've been writing and preparing a lot of documentation and reports on those so we can make some strategic decisions on how best to manage them going forward.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. I've got one from Walter K. AAZ has had minimal CapEx over the past seven years. When will the company provide CapEx guidance for achieving the strategic plan, given the requirement for two new tailings dams and further extensive PP&E? The answer to that is that we have already started to improve what we're giving for guidance. We're now giving turnover guidance, and we are giving EBITDA guidance. I think it's only natural that we can start giving more guidance on CapEx as well. I think that's something that the company will very much consider and is quite likely to happen in the next guidance that we give out, which will be early 2026.
Okay. I have a question here from Ian J. Actually, there's two, but the first one: What are the main issues when deciding whether to upgrade copper output from concentrate to electrolyzed? Example, price difference, CapEx, et cetera. Now, it's not just purely the financials. It's the metallurgical properties of the rocks themselves. Obviously, the capital costs and operating costs form a significant impact on this. There is a big price difference. You know, that's where going forward Ian J. also had another question. Turning to Damirli, what are the implications for processing copper sulfide rather than oxide? Now, that's where a combined situation of looking at flotation that we currently have with copper heap leach going forward could be an option of balancing that portfolio of production.
That's why we're trying to understand our geological model in terms of what tons of each type of material we have is so fundamental in making those decisions. Yes, it's all of the different impacts and modifying factors that go into the financial models. Quite clearly, we need to be looking at the type of mineralization that we have going forward and how it could be balanced between the flotation plant and the solvent extraction electrowinning. Clearly as well, the final product from flotation is concentrate. Solvent extraction electrowinning through heap leach is copper cathode. The other thing is that, you know, the deposits that we have are quite clean copper, in inverted commas. They don't necessarily carry precious metals with them.
With any offtake agreements, et cetera, as much as we have some pretty good agreements currently, there wouldn't be additional precious metal benefits to the copper concentrate. When we bring that aspect into it as well, and the fact that we'd be producing copper metal as opposed to concentrate, that's where, you know, the differences really start to come forward and highlight the fact that, you know, heap leach for us in those situations could be really quite a strong argument. Okay. I have another one here again. Dave K. You mentioned mining the deepest levels. I'm assuming that is at Garadagh. Is this a block caving method? We're looking at a method of vertical crater retreat.
Effectively, instead of removing the material, could we actually create a fragmented column that could be leached in circuit? You know, we're looking at all different scenarios, and looking at all different comparisons of technologies and mining methods from around the world to see what we can do in terms of optimizing, you know, the overall management of the new projects going forward. We've looked at block caving, but it's not an ideal situation for us under that current situation. Okay. Bill, do you want to take any?
No, I've just reviewed the questions, and I have now answered, I think, all of those questions that require financial input. I think it's just any final questions that you feel need answering, Stephen, and I think-
Okay
We've come to the end of the questions.
Well, look, I have two more here. One from Stan M. When will extension drilling commence at Gilar from the underground development? It already has. So we've got rigs underground at the moment, and we're just starting to drill that zone four extensions to see what's what. During the tunneling activity to get to zone four, we did intersect some mineralization as well. So we're trying to understand the structural geology and the position of that mineralization going forward. And then as I referenced with regards to the upper levels of Gilar, once the team have reworked at the higher metal prices, the effective outline of the mineralization, I am aware that there were gaps in the drilling of that upper level.
We would then look at either drilling from surface or indeed putting additional infrastructure to drill from underground. That work is all ongoing. It's a seriously exciting project. Guido B. Stephen, how is the tailings dam at Garadagh performing and will we need to update, upgrade, and construct a new one? Okay. The tailings dam is performing very well. Obviously we have regular inspections, independent, and our own and with government. Performance is absolutely fine. We're currently finishing off the construction of the final lift 5B, as it's called. That is proposed to be completed into probably Q1 next year in reality. That should then give us 2-3 years.
We've already got design documents and drawings submitted to the government with regards to Tailings 2, with the locations of that and simply as soon as they come back from the government, we'll be finalizing the construction design and pushing that forward. Quite clearly, I know what you're driving at. Effectively you're looking at, you know, ensuring that there's overlap between Tailings 1 and Tailings 2, so it doesn't impact on the production schedule. That's something, you know, we will be pushing and we'll be keeping the market updated accordingly. Thank you for that, Guido.
That's great. Well, I might just jump in and thank you for answering those questions from investors. Of course, the company can review the questions submitted today, and we will publish the responses out on the Investor Meet Company platform. Just before redirecting investors to provide you with their feedback, which is particularly important to the company, Stephen, could I just ask you for a few closing comments?
Sure. First of all, thank you to everybody for participating in this event and for the organizers. You know, I'd just like to say I think the company's in a very strong position. Our share price is the highest it's ever been. Our production is ramping up. We've got records in our production scenarios and we've really created now a strong foundation for our future growth and development of the group to become a mid-tier company. Again, thank you all very much. Much appreciated and we appreciate your support. Thank you.
That's great. Well, thank you once again for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close this session? As you know, you'll be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. On behalf of the management team of Anglo Asian Mining PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.