Mining
AzerGold Fires First Blast at Soyudlu, Caucasus' Largest Gold Deposit
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Min
State-owned AzerGold CJSC has carried out the first drilling and blasting operation at the Soyudlu (Zod) gold deposit in Azerbaijan's Kalbajar District, shifting the largest known gold asset in the South Caucasus from exploration into mine construction.
The blast marks the start of physical site preparation after more than a year of subsurface work. Since August 2025 the company has completed large-scale geological studies, topographic planning and 18,000 metres of drilling across the licence area. On the basis of that programme, recoverable remaining reserves at Soyudlu have been estimated at 1 million ounces, or roughly 28 tonnes of contained gold.
The deposit sits on Azerbaijan's border with Armenia and is known on the Armenian side as Sotk, where the orebody continues across the frontier. AzerGold has framed Soyudlu as the anchor project of its medium-term growth plan, alongside its existing Chovdar operation and a widening exploration portfolio. During the initial development and construction phase running from 2026 to 2029, the project is expected to support roughly 700 direct and indirect jobs, rising to more than 1,300 once the mine reaches full-scale production, according to APA.
For investors, the significance is less the headline ounce count than what it signals about Azerbaijan's non-oil industrial pipeline. Baku has spent the past three years trying to convert hydrocarbon revenue into a broader minerals base, and gold and copper have emerged as the two clearest candidates. A single deposit of 1 million recoverable ounces is mid-tier by global standards, but it is the largest in the region and gives AzerGold a multi-decade production asset without foreign capital dependence. The first blast also puts a date stamp on a project that had been described in planning terms since 2023, reporting from Trend indicates.
Execution risk remains front-loaded. Kalbajar is high-altitude, seasonally constrained and still undergoing demining and road reconstruction, which historically adds cost and slippage to construction schedules. AzerGold has not published a capital budget, an all-in sustaining cost estimate or a first-pour target for Soyudlu, and until it does, the 2026-2029 window should be read as a construction phase rather than a revenue phase.
The broader picture is an Azerbaijani mining sector adding capacity on two fronts at once: precious metals at Soyudlu and copper through separate state and private operations. Both are being developed against a backdrop of firm gold prices and tightening global copper supply, which improves the economics but does not remove the logistics problem of moving concentrate out of a landlocked, mountainous licence area.
