Aus News P12 Mar 2009 08:35
EMERGING copper producer Finders Resources is listed as a speculative buy by Green Leader Equities, which says its attractive returns and experience should win out for its shareholders.
The NSW-based company is focused on its Wetar pilot plant in Indonesia.
Wetar is a potential 20,000-plus tonnes per annum, sub-$US1 a pound copper project showing resilient returns on investment.
"Finders is dependent on thawing capital markets to finance the full-scale development at a reasonable cost," Green Leader says in its note on the stock. "Wetar can meet the requisite financial hurdles and by mid-2009 the demonstration project will have resolved most of Wetar's remaining practical uncertainty."
Green Leader says Finders' Wetar conforms to an ideal copper project in many respects, with 2.5 per cent copper from surface with discrete ore boundaries, in a coastal location with no competing land use and a positive legacy left by past mining.
Total Wetar resources are 8.8 million tonnes at 2.4 per cent copper, containing 218,000 tonnes of copper. Almost all resources are expected to convert to reserves. Forecast production at Wetar is 21,000 tonnes of copper metal per year (including the demonstration plant output) from 2011 at an average operating cost of US70c/lb for a minimum nine years of mine life.