Altona Mining's Roseby project yet to bloom

An increase in expected production by Altona Mining (AOH) for the current financial year has been offset by continuing uncertainty over its Roseby project.

The copper and gold miner is predicting that its Outokumpu project in Finland will produce 7,600 to 8,400 tonnes of copper and 8,000 to 9,000 ounces of gold in 2013-14 compared to its expected copper and gold production of 7,500 to 8,000 tonnes and 7,500 to 8,000 ounces for the past financial year, respectively.

However, C1 cash cost is tipped to increase to between $US1.70 and $US1.85 a pound in 2013-14. This would represent an 18.3% increase if the mid-points of the cash guidance from the current and past financial years were used.

Altona also said that discussions with a number of parties to either sell, partner or finance its larger scale Roseby project has yet to yield an acceptable outcome.

The Roseby project is the main game, in many investors’ minds as it contains in excess of 1.5 million tonnes of copper, and that doesn’t include the very prospective Little Eva project that is within the Roseby project.

Little Eva is fully permitted with a completed definitive feasibility study (DFS) on a simple 39,000 tonnes a year copper open pit mine and floatation plant.

Altona does not have the financial muscle to bring Roseby to life and investors are nervous about whether the project will see the light of day after Xstrata decided not to exercise its option to buy a 51% stake in Roseby in January this year.

Altona, which is an Uncapped 100 stock, last traded at 16.5 cents on Friday and has plunged around 42% since the start of the calendar year.