Equinox May Reach Full Copper Production by Mid-2010

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Equinox Minerals Ltd., owner of Africa’s biggest copper mine, expects to reach full production at its Lumwana project in Zambia by the middle of next year.

“Once we are up to full-steam production, we should be able to achieve something of” the order of 170,000 metric tons of copper output a year, Chief Executive Officer Craig Williams said today in an interview. “At the end of the second quarter we should be hopefully getting pretty close to full productivity.”

Equinox cut its 2009 output target by as much as 35 percent last month because of insufficient availability of mining equipment and “challenges” in processing ore. The $841 million Lumwana mine, Zambia’s largest foreign investment project, began production in December 2008.

“The key thing you try to do is to have the mine output the same as the mill throughput,” Williams, 58, said. “ We’re not achieving that yet and we’re working on various productivity improvement programs to increase that mine output.”

Equinox fell 2.4 percent to A$3.40 at the 4:10 p.m. close in Sydney of the Australian stock exchange, giving it a market value of A$2.4 billion ($2.1 billion). The stock also trades on the Toronto stock exchange.

Takeover Opportunities

The company is looking at global takeover opportunities to expand, probably in copper, Williams said, adding that it isn’t “actively” involved in takeover talks at present.

“In a couple of years’ time I think we’ll have more than one producing asset,” he said. “The focus is certainly on looking for producing assets.”

Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.6 percent to $5,998 a ton at 4:26 p.m. in Sydney. It dropped as low as $2,845 on Dec. 24 last year and reached a record $8,730 on July 4, 2008.

“We’re heading into a bit of a crunch point,” he said. “Although demand has flattened out from what it was a couple of years ago, it’s still ticking along and there’s no supply coming through. The medium trend should see prices go north.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Perth at Jscott14@bloomberg.net