METOREX has a capital development budget of $350m over the next four years, which will result in copper output quadrupling to 100,000 tonnes and the first flow of platinum in the group, said CEO Charles Needham.

Within the next two months Metorex is likely to issue a report, including a resources estimate, capital budget, mining method and possible production costs, of a new project at Musonoi.

The Musonoi project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appears to have Metorex management excited. It could add 25,000 to 35,000 tonnes of copper on top of the forecast output of 100,000 tonnes in 2011, Needham said.

“This is the most exciting exploration project we have had in the company in all the time I’ve been with Metorex, which is many years now,” Needham told Miningmx. He joined Metorex in 1981.

“It has the potential to be another high grade, high quality mine. It’s more of a Ruashi-type ore body, with copper and cobalt,” he said.

The Musonoi project falls outside the $350m Metorex has budgeted towards completing the development of phase two at Ruashi, where the sprawling plant to extract copper and cobalt is nearing completion.

The first phase of Ruashi produces 10,000 tonnes of copper and 500 tonnes of cobalt in concentrate a year. The concentrate is treated at Metorex's Sable solvent extraction/electro winning plant in Zambia. The second phase will produced 45,000 tonnes of copper metal and 3,500 tonnes of cobalt a year.

The second phase ramp up at the $220m Ruashi project will be completed by December this year.

Metorex is also spending upwards of $150m on refurbishing and restarting the Kinsenda underground mine that it acquired with its purchase of AIM-traded Copper Resources Corporation.

Metorex has slightly above 50% of CRC, giving it management and operational control of the London-based company’s projects in the DRC. There was every indication of another DRC operator Central African Mining and Exploration Company (Camec) racing Metorex for control of CRC.

Camec has 47% of CRC.

With CRC came the Lubembe oxide deposit of 47.5 million tonnes grading 2.2% copper. Metorex will spend $5m and 18 months delineating the orebody and planning how to exploit it.

The Mushoshi project, which is a flooded mine and has a lower grade than the 4.9% at Kinsenda, is under review by Metorex to see how best it can generate value. The grade of the sulphide deposit is 2.4% copper and it’s a deep mine, Needham said.

Metorex bought Phoenix Platinum for R100m. Phoenix has rights to tailings dumps and risings from a chrome miner near Brits in South Africa. The business model is based closely on that of the very successful Sylvania company.

Metorex is busy with a plant design and securing rights to build that plant on site of the chrome producer. There are also talks about a fresh tailings site.

Phoenix is expected to produce 21,000 oz of PGMs a year from about 2010. It will take about R100m to develop the project.

Metorex is sinking declines into shallow antimony and gold ore packages at its Consolidated Murchison mine in South Africa. Over the next 15 months Metorex will increase processing to 50,000 tonnes/month from 35,000 tonnes currently.

Consolidated Murchison produces 23,000 oz of gold and 4,500 tonnes of antimony a year. This will increase in line with the boost in production. – Miningmx.com