KALGOORLIE, Australia, Aug 7 (Reuters) - EMED Mining is making plans to restart Spain's fabled Rio Tintocopper mine in early 2015, citing a mini-mining boom in thecopper-rich Iberian Peninsula that is attracting foreign miningcompanies.
Production at the Rio Tinto mine would start at around40,000 tonnes per year, rising to 60,000 tonnes within twoyears, said EMED Managing Director Harry Anagnostaras-Adams.
Anagnostaras-Adams said the mine will employ 1,000 people ina region where around 50 percent of the workforce is jobless.
"This area is in the forefront of a resurgence in mining inEurope," Anagnostaras-Adams told Reuters on the side of theDiggers and Dealers mining conference.
Others operating in the region include IberianMinerals-Trafigura , Inmet Mining, FirstQuantum and Lundin Mining.
Copper prices have been stuck in a $6,600-$7,100 band sincemid-June and are down around 12 percent for the year, hit byconcerns over the world's two biggest economies, China and theUnited States. The metal is used in power and construction.
But Anagnostaras-Adams said a "structural problem" exists incopper mining where low investment was setting the stage for anunder-supplied global marketplace, which could boost prices.
European countries, including Spain and Portugal, areattracting investment with good grades of ore, a large labourpool and revamped mining regulations.
The Rio Tinto copper mine's modern history dates back 1871when the Spanish government sold it to a British firm whicheventually became the global miner Rio Tinto .
The mine gained its name from the Spanish river Rio Tinto.
Miner Rio Tinto sold the Spanish project in the 1980s. By2001 under operation by a workers' collective, it wasmothballed. EMED took an option over the project six years laterand then acquired 100 percent ownership.
Last year, Anagnostaras-Adams negotiated a deal withinvestment bank Goldman Sachs to provide EMED with more than$175 million up front, with no equity dilution. In exchange,Goldman Sachs gets the equivalent in copper delivered everymonth for seven years.
He said EMED will be able to restart the project at a cost equivalent to around $2 per pound of copper, which isbelow the industry average of $2.50. EMED can do it cheaperbecause much of the project's infrastructure is intact, he said.
