Indophil to take active role in Tampakan project

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines - A foreign junior partner at a huge mining venture straddling three Mindanao provinces will play a direct participation at the onset of commercial operations targeted in late 2012, the company declared in its quarterly report released last week. Richard Laufmann, Indophil Resources NL managing director and chief executive officer, stressed the company is bullish over the Tampakan copper and gold project, which the local Catholic Church is staunchly opposing on concerns for the environment and human health. Straddling the towns of Tampakan in South Cotabato, Columbio in Sultan Kudarat and Kiblawan in Davao del Sur, the Tampakan project has been under the management of Xstrata Copper, an affiliate of major global mining house Xstrata Plc., since March last year after it exercised its option for a 62.5 percent ownership stake. Before the take over, Indophil Resources was at the helm of the Tampakan project, completing the pre feasibility study about two years ago at a tune of Au$ 27 million. Indophil owns 32.5 percent of the project but will increase to 37.5 percent after Filipino firm Alsons Corp. agreed to sell its five percent stake to the former. Initial payments, in cash and shares in Indophil, have been made to Alsons and the rest of the obligations will be fulfilled by the Australian firm as key project milestones will be achieved. "We [Indophil] will have direct participation in the late 2012 start-up of one of the largest and most significant copper-gold projects in the world today," Laufmann told their investors in the quarterly report for the three months to March 2008. Xstrata Copper continues to manage and advance feasibility studies for the Tampakan project, held under the Philippine firm Sagittarius Mines, Inc. The firm's quarterly report mentioned the New Year's Day attack at the exploration base camp of Sagittarius, which led to the burning of facilities and equipment worth at least P12 million. "Local community groups and [the] government condemned the raid and restated their support for the project," the report said. Progress for the Tampakan project on key studies during the period, said Gavan Collery, Indophil manager for corporate affairs, includes the following: * Completion of conceptual designs for waste and tailings storage facilities; * Conveyor transport of ore and waste, pit slope angles and mine planning systems; * Flotation characterization test work to allow a scope of work for the concentrator design to be issued; * Power generation and transmission, port facilities, transport logistics, site access roads, permanent camp and alternative conceptual resettlement village layouts; * And scoping of the environmental and social impact assessment. - Sun.Star