* OZ Minerals has preferred bidder for Martabe project
* Deal could be achieved in a short time frame
(Adds detail, quotes)
By Denny Thomas
SYDNEY, April 2 (Reuters) - Australian miner OZ Minerals Ltd
has a preferred bidder for its partly developed Martabe gold and silver project in Indonesia, an OZ Minerals official told Reuters on Thursday.
"We have still got a competitive process going, but we have got a preferred bidder and we would expect they would be people who complete (the deal)," Bruce Loveday, general manager business development for OZ Minerals said.
Loveday declined to name the bidder or the price.
On Wednesday, OZ Minerals agreed to sell most of its assets, excluding Martabe and the Prominent Hill mine in Australia, to China's Minmetals for $1.21 billion in a revised deal after the Australian government blocked a previous takeover bid for OZ on national security grounds. [ID:nSYD495273].
Separately, a source familiar with the Martabe sale process said negotiations were progressing well.
"The discussions are progressing and a transaction could be completed on Martabe within a fairly short time frame," the source said.
The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Following the revised Minmetals deal, OZ Minerals' lenders agreed to extend a debt repayment deadline on A$1.1 billion of debt to the end of April.
The sale of Martabe would give some comfort to lenders if the Minmetals deal, which still needs Australian foreign investment approval, did not go ahead by June.
OZ puts a book value on Martabe of A$210 million ($147 million) and Chief Executive Andrew Michelmore said on Wednesday it would not sell the asset on the cheap.
One name that has been linked to Martabe is Owen Hegarty, former head of Oxiana before its merger with Zinifex created OZ Minerals last year.
Another source close to OZ Minerals said most bids for Martabe had come in around the book value.
"In terms of price expectations, I don't think much has really changed since Minmetals new bid," the source added.
OZ Minerals shares jumped 7.5 percent to A$0.575 on Thursday, outpacing a 2.8 percent rise in the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index
