TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Inmet Mining, the Toronto-based miner that saw a 67% drop in fourth-quarter profit to C$48-million, is considering expanding its big Cobre Panama copper project in Central America, but only at a later stage, CEO Jochen Tilk said on Friday.

“The deposit in all likelihood, and I would almost go so far as to say certainty, will need an expansion,” he told analysts on a conference call.

The company in early January received environmental approval for the mine and associated infrastructure, and would have to make another application for any expansion, which was not on the immediate horizon, Tilk added.

“That won’t happen tomorrow – it won’t happen in the very near future, but we obviously look at the potential to expand at the earliest reasonable timeframe possible.”

Inmet, which scrapped plans to merge with Canadian peer Lundin Mining last year, previously said it aims to start building the 300 000 t/y mine in the first quarter of 2012, with the first concentrate being shipped in early 2016.

Soon after receiving the environmental green light, Inmet announced that its partners, a Korean consortium, exercised their right to buy a 20% stake in Cobre Panama.

The TSX-listed company is also in talks with other potential partners to sell a further 40% shareholding in the mine.

Tilk said that some of the due diligence activities the prospective partners were carrying out had lasted into this year.

Before Inmet concludes any sale, though, the company will complete a basic engineering study on Cobre Panama, which it anticipates this quarter, followed by a month-long independent review of the project’s costs.

Cobre Panama was “one of the few projects in the world that is literally ready to go” as far as significant new copper production goes, Tilk said.

The mine will account for around 75% of Panama’s exports once at full production, according to Inmet.
 

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