Cudeco to start production at Curry mine in 2012 AMANDA GARARD 27 May, 2011 12:00 AM COPPER miner Cudeco will seek to formalise a shares agreement with a Hong Kong-based resources company at its AGM in July, which would see about $138 million poured into the company's Rocklands Project, near Cloncurry.
Cudeco plans to mine 3 million tonnes of copper a year for 10 years from the $200 million Rocklands project, and provide employment for 240 people in the Cloncurry area.
Cudeco chairman Wayne McRae said the company would be entering full production in late 2012 or early 2013, about 18-24 months from now, with its exploration progam to continue for at least five years.
Last month Cudeco signed an offtake supply agreement for its yet-to-be-built Rocklands copper mine with Oceanwide International Resources Investment Co and China Oceanwide International Holdings Co, which would see the Hong Kong-based group buy a minimum of 60 per cent of the total product from the Rocklands Project for the next 20 years, with the possibility of increasing that to 100 per cent of the total product.
Cudeco ordered a trading halt on Monday in lieu of the announcement to formalise the agreement.
On March 25, Cudeco announced it had entered into an agreement to issue 6.25 million fully paid ordinary shares at $4 each to raise $25 million.
The aim was to secure enough capital to continue development of the Rocklands Project.
On April 27, China Oceanwide agreed to buy another 14.95 million shares at $3.80 each, raising another $56.81 million for Cudeco.
On the same day China Oceanwide agreed to bring its total shareholding to about 19.9 per cent by buying another 15 million shares at $3.80 each, resulting in an additional $57 million new equity capital for exploration works, plant and capital and corporate overheads.
Recent drilling has found an iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) style deposit with copper-cobalt-gold mineralisation in a series of subparallel steeply dipping zones in the project.
The Rocklands Project is located in the biggest known copper belt of Australia, host to Xstrata's Ernest Henry Mine
