ox on the march, page-23

Oz Minerals reaffirms Laos copper forecast

July 22, 2008 - 11:04AM

Australian miner Oz Minerals, formerly known as Oxiana, expects to meet its annual copper production forecast from its Sepon mine in Laos, despite a second-quarter setback, but it has cut its gold-output forecast.

Shares in Oz Minerals, still trading as Oxiana, jumped 7% to $2.14 after the company issued its second-quarter production report.

Copper production in the June quarter fell 19% to 13,240 tonnes, due to a major planned shutdown in April and an unplanned plant shutdown due to a fire in May.

It stuck with its full-year production forecast of 60,000 to 65,000 tonnes of copper from Sepon.

Oz Minerals, which has acquired Australian zinc miner Zinifex, said gold production at Sepon was 19,096 ounces over the period, down 26% from the same period last year due to minor flooding in some mining areas.

It cut its Sepon gold production forecast for the year to between 85,000 and 95,000 ounces, from 90,000-100,000 ounces.

Despite a major gas outage in Western Australia, Oz Minerals raised zinc production at Golden Grove by 2.7% to 37,683 tonnes.

Oz Minerals said it only had to cut production capacity for two days due to the gas outage, which brought down about a third of power supplies to Western Australia state.

Zinc production at Zinifex's Century mine rose to a record 521,471 tonnes for the year to June 30, up 4% on the previous year on better recoveries and stable operations.

Reuters