By Elisabeth Behrmann Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SYDNEY (Dow...

By Elisabeth Behrmann
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--Cape Lambert Iron Ore Ltd. (CFE.AU) is aiming for a restart of the Lady Annie copper mine in September or October, and is focusing on exploration to add value to the operation before a potential sale, the company's executive chairman said Monday.

Cape Lambert completed the purchase of Lady Annie Monday, as part of the assets of failed miner CopperCo Ltd. (CUO.AU) and subsidiaries that went into receivership last year.

"We've been on site for the past five or six weeks. With the rise in the copper price, we've been inundated with offers to buy Lady Annie and other parts of CopperCo," Executive Chairman Tony Sage told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

"We'd like to increase mine life to seven, eight, nine years from the current four to five years. If there's an offer we can't refuse we'll take it, but for now we want to add more value through exploration in the next few months before considering to sell," said Sage.

So far Chinese companies and "a couple of Australian producers" have lodged expressions of interest, he added.

In the past Lady Annie produced about 19,000 metric tons of copper annually, but has nameplate capacity of about 30,000 tons. At current copper prices, metal contained in past output would be worth about US$97 million.

The mine, located 120 kilometers north of Mount Isa in Queensland, has been on care and maintenance since February after severe flooding hit the area.

"We believe output can go to 40,000 tons," said Sage.

CopperCo went into voluntary administration in November last year after a financing deal fell through.