OceanaGold delays production start at Philippine mine

MANILA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Australia-based gold miner OceanaGold will start commercial production at its Philippine copper and gold venture in January, 2010, nearly a year behind its initial plan, while it looks for a partner, a company official said on Tuesday.

"We're looking at January 2010. We'd like to spend the whole of 2009 constructing and developing the project," company spokesman Ramoncito Gozar told reporters on the sidelines of a mining conference in Manila.

The company is seeking a partner to help fund an additional $185 million needed for the Didipio copper and gold project to take off.


Gozar said OceanaGold has spent $64 million on the project so far.

The Didipio project in Nueva Vizcaya province north of Manila is only the second mining venture to be operated by a foreign firm in the Philippines.

The firm was earlier hoping to begin commercial production by the first half of 2009.

Gozar said the company has trimmed down the number of prospective partners to four, but did not identify them.

Asked whether OceanaGold, which owns 92 percent of the Didipio project, is willing to give up control to a prospective partner, Gozar said: "We may or may not."

Start-up operations at Didipio were partially suspended earlier this year due to rising development costs.

The project cost was raised to $320 million in May from an original $155 million in 2006 due to higher raw material costs and after Oceanagold altered the project to include a $33-$34 million, 18-megawatt power facility to ensure steady electricity supply at the mine site.

The Didipio mine is expected to produce around 120,000 ounces of gold and around 15,000 tonnes of copper concentrate annually in the first 10 years of production. The mine has a minimum life of 15 years.

(Reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr.; Editing by Kim Coghill)