UNKNOWN gunmen today set fire to drilling equipment owned by the...

UNKNOWN gunmen today set fire to drilling equipment owned by the Philippine unit of Swiss-based mining giant Xstrata, the second such attack against the company this year, the military said.
The attack occurred before dawn near the town of Kiblawan on Mindanao island, where Xstrata subsidiary Sagittarius Mining Inc. is developing a major copper-gold prospect called Tampakan.

The gunmen set fire to a drilling machine, said a written report from the army division operating in the area. There were no reports of casualties and no group has claimed responsibility.

A unit of pro-government militia trained by the military to safeguard the country's mining projects has been dispatched to track down the fleeing raiders and to assess the damage, the report said.

Communist New People's Army guerrillas attacked the Tampakan site on New Year's Eve, destroying Sagittarius Mining property, in a raid that prompted the government to re-evaluate security for major projects in the promising resources sector.

The Maoist group, with more than 5000 members, often attacks economic targets as part of efforts to raise funds through extortion.

Xstrata describes the Tampakan project as "one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the Southeast Asia-Western Pacific region,'' with estimated deposits of two billion tonnes containing 11.6 million tonnes of copper and 14.6 million ounces of gold.

It expects to complete feasibility studies on the project in the second half of 2009.