TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Vancouver-based copper producer Quadra Mining could be in a position to announce a partner on its Sierra Gorda copper/molybdenum project, in Chile, in the first quarter of next year, CEO Paul Blythe said on Monday.

“We were looking for the end of the year [to announce a transaction], but I think it will be the first quarter of next year before we have anything firm that we can put out in the public domain.”

The company published a scoping study on the asset in July, and plans to complete a prefeasibility study by the end of 2010, at a cost of around $40-million.

The firm has also said it plans to finance the development of the project by selling a stake in the asset, and Blythe said on Monday that discussions are advancing well with potential partners.

“We've got a team that's been working very hard on it, and everybody's been making the right noises,” he said on a conference call.

“We've got what we are looking for, but of course we don't control the counterparties,” he said on Monday.

Blythe said earlier this year he would look first at entities that would be interested in securing offtake in exchange for bringing finance to the table for the construction of the mine.

According to the scoping study, Sierra Gorda could produce between 250-million and 400-million pounds of copper a year over a 25-year mine life.

Average cash costs were estimated at $0,79/lb, and the project also contains molybdenum, with moly output estimated at some 33-million pounds a year for the first eight years, and declining thereafter.

Shares in Quadra, which published third-quarter results on Monday, slid 2,9% by 16:28 in Toronto, to C$15,00 apiece.

The company owns the Carlota mine, in Arizona, and the Robinson mine, in Nevada, and bought an operation in Chile – the Franke project – earlier this year.

Franke was substantially built when Quadra took over, but the previous owner had run into financing trouble before it started commissioning.

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