Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. said Tuesday it had signed a contract to supply 60,000 dry metric tons of copper concentrate from its Toledo mine in the central Philippines to privately owned Swiss company MRI Trading.

It is the first supply deal that Atlas, the Philippines’ second-largest mining company, has struck since resuming mining ore at the Toledo mine in Cebu province in July.

The Toledo mine, once the world’s third-largest copper producer, was closed in 1994 after it was flooded during a typhoon.

“We’re now going through final commissioning and we anticipate production of copper concentrate and shipment in September,” Atlas chief financial office Martin Buckingham told Reuters.

Atlas said the copper concentrate was expected to be delivered to MRI by June 2009.

“We’ve had a lot of interest from smelters in China, India, Japan and Korea, but this is a good start for us to work with MRI,” Buckingham said.

“We’ve hedged the first 30,000 tons of concentrate, which allows us to enjoy the good copper prices available at the moment,” he said.

The Toledo mine, which is being operated by Atlas subsidiary Carmen Copper Corp., is estimated to have deposits of 874 million metric tons with an average of 0.41 percent copper.

source : Reuter

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