Oxiana continues its stellar performance across all its areas of operation with projections that the company could quadruple its copper production in the next three to four years. Chairman Barry Cusack and managing director Owen Hegarty have given the company a glowing report at its recent annual general meeting in Melbourne, Australia.

He said 2005 was a year of continuing strong performance for Oxiana and one which has positioned the company for future growth.

Barry Cusack labelled the key issues for the mining industry were cost increases and skills shortages but heralded that Oxiana had addressed these issues at its operations.

Oxiana has successfully implemented a social policy within its area of operation at Laos . It has an excellent record in its performance within the communities in which it works and with its own employees. Among its outstanding social infrastructure programs include Oxiana's introduction of Laos ' first ever apprenticeship program in conjunction with RMIT and being awarded the Lao Development Medal for community development projects at its Sepon operation in Laos .

"2005 was a year when Oxiana continued to hit its targets and to perform as promised," Barry Cusack said.

"We completed the expansion of the gold operation at Sepon on time and on budget, we produced our first high quality, in demand, copper cathodes at Sepon on time and budget and successfully completed the ramp-up to full copper production on an aggressive schedule.

"The Prominent Hill copper-gold project continued to exhibit competitive fundamentals and we quickly took that project into bankable feasibility study. And we acquired the Golden Grove zinc operation - which was another major step to strengthen and grow the company," he said.

Barry Cusack is optimistic about the current market.

"We are strong believers in the continued attractiveness of the resources industry to investors and remain very positive about the fundamentals," he said.

Oxiana managing director Owen Hegarty says, "We continue to deliver serious value to our shareholders and our growth and development plans mean we will continue to do that."

The Boston Consulting Group Study has placed Oxiana at the top of all Australian Stock Exchange listed companies for five year returns to shareholders.

"The outlook for Oxiana is excellent - we are in the right commodities at the right time. In copper particularly our revenue base and our development plans mean we could potentially quadruple our copper production in the next 3-4 years and we remain low cost producers in each of our metals - copper, gold and zinc," Owen Hegarty said.