Antofagasta plc announced that Minera Esperanza has signed definitive agreements for the US$1,050
million project financing of the Esperanza copper-gold project in Chile. Minera Esperanza is owned 70% by Antofagasta, and 30% by Marubeni Corporation.
Antofagasta announced that the Regional Commission of the Environment for Chile's II Region has approved the environmental impact assessment for the Esperanza project which had been submitted for consideration in August 2007. The approval will allow construction of the project to progress as planned with first production expected at the end of 2010. In its first ten years of operations, Esperanza is expected to produce an annual average of approximately 700,000 tonnes of concentrates containing 195,000 tonnes of payable copper, 229,000 ounces of payable gold and 1,556,000 ounces of payable silver.
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