Oxiana will expand capacity at its Sepon Copper operation in Laos by one-third.

Capacity at Sepon will be increased from 60,000 tonnes per annum to 80,000 by 2010. The estimated capital cost is US$178 million and overall life-of-mine cash operating costs will be reduced by about 10%.

Production at Sepon began in 2005 and last year it produced up to 63,000 tonnes of copper metal cathodes.

The operation is based on mining from the high grade Khanong deposit, with the nature of the ore allowing processing via whole-of-ore leach, solvent-extraction and electrowinning to final copper cathode metal on site. More than 150,000 tonnes of copper cathodes has been produced since commissioning.

Exploration has seen further copper resources discovered at the Thengkham North and Thengkham South deposits, about 7km west of the plant. These additional resources, along with further exploration success in and around the Khanong ore body, have justified an expansion of processing capacity.

The main additions to the plant will be a larger new primary crusher, an additional 8 CCD tank train, commensurate leaching capacity additions and 24 new electro-winning cells. A number of de-bottlenecking and improvement projects will also be undertaken. The expected completion date is the fourth quarter of 2009.

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