"There’s a new plan which is to start early. Production should be 16 months from now (October 2007). That was the old plan. But we’re focusing on early production from the open pit," said Constante P. Bumanglag, ACMDC vice president for operations, in an interview.

Higher metal prices, copper in particular which is hitting more than $ 3 per pound in the market, has apparently made previously hard-to-dig reserves viable. New reserve estimate indicates the Carmen mine’s open pit life can stretch to three to five years from the previous estimate of less than three years.

About one year after starting production from the open pit at about 20,000 metric tons (MT) yearly, the company will ramp up mine and mill capacity to 42,000 MT through its underground mine. Planned production is from the South Tulugan pit, and then the Carmen pit, and the South Lantoy pit.

"Some geologists are there now to assess the final reserve estimate. Some areas in the open pit reserve not economically viable to mine before has now become viable due to the higher price of metal," he said.

Despite copper soaring price, ACMDC is setting its revised revenue based on $ 1.50 per pound at which level mining authorities see copper price stabilizing.

The company will be producing gold, silver, and magnetite, (iron ore) from this project.

Found in Brgy. Don Andres Soriano, Toledo City in Cebu, the project earlier had an estimated reserve of 874 million MT at 0.41 percent copper with gross value of $ 6.5 billion. Total mine life was originally set at 12 years based on a mineable ore reserve of 191.23 million MT at 0.39 percent copper.

To put back into operation the mine that run as one of South East Asia’s largest mine until it closed in 1994, ACMDC has been rehabilitating the South Carmen open pit mine, underground, concentrator, and other infrastructures. It is embarking on a reforestation project using jatropha that can produce fuel to even run and the mine.

ACMDC has just entered in a $ 40-million funding agreement with Crescent Asian Special Opportunities Portfolio (CASOP) to finance the copper project which also involves debt restructuring and offtake agreements.

The project has a potential investment of $ 170 million and potential gross sales of $ 124 million.

Excise tax to the government will be at about $ 2.5 million per year (without incentives) and income tax at $ 17.4 million per year (without incentives).