PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Oz Minerals on Wednesday suspended its hunt for a joint venture partner for its Carrapateena project, in South Australia, while the company looked to maximise the medium- to long-term value of the copper asset.

Oz Minerals CEO Andrew Cole said the company would suspend its data room and partnering process until the value-add initiatives were completed, and the results of these integrated into a prefeasibility study.

“Two recent decisions have led the company to put the partnering process on hold to ensure any future agreement reflected the true value of the Carrapateena asset,” Cole said.

He noted that initial concentrate treatment tests conducted last year had indicated that the project’s copper concentrate grade could be nearly doubled from the existing 30% to 35% up to 55% to 60%.

“These results warrant us progressing with a demonstration plant at a total cost of A$18-million in 2015, to verify the process scalability to full production.”

Furthermore, the recently announced infrastructure partnership with the South Australian government, under which Oz Minerals would collaborate with the state government on the development of infrastructure solutions, would allow Oz Minerals to explore significantly lower capital development costs for Carrapateena by transporting ore to the existing production facilities at Prominent Hill.

The state government also agreed to provide A$10-million in funding for testwork, at a demonstration plant scale, for a hydrometallurgical process that could see significant benefits for the Carrapateena project.

“As both of these initiatives have the potential to significantly improve the value or composition of any partnership stake in the development of Carrapateena, we will be suspending our data room and the partnering process until these initiatives are completed,” Cole said.

Cole pointed out that 25 parties had indicated interest in partnering in the development of the Carrapateena project, including both major and midtier mining companies, potential offtake partners, royalty participants and State-owned enterprises.

“While I understand a number of those prospective partners will be disappointed in the short term, it is in our shareholders’ medium- to longer-term interest to ensure we ascertain the true value of any future partnership stake while evaluating all other options.”

Meanwhile, Oz Minerals on Wednesday also announced a return to profitability in the full-year ended December, with the miner reporting a net profit after tax of A$48.5-million, compared with a loss of A$294.4-million in the previous financial year.

Group revenue for the full year reached A$831-million, compared with the A$664-million reported in 2013, while underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation increased from A$115.8-million in the previous year to A$341.1-million.

“In 2014, Oz Minerals succeeded in meeting or exceeding all of its production targets, returning to a copper production rate of 100 000 t/y and exceeding market guidance for copper production, gold production and costs,” Cole said.

He noted that ore production from the Malu underground mine also started on schedule, while encouraging drill results were also achieved at the Khamsin and Fremantle Doctor deposits.

“These results, along with the release of a prefeasibility study for the Carrapateena project demonstrating a project net present value of A$1.1-billion, have laid a solid foundation for Oz Minerals going forward.”