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Q1 2008 ANVIL MINING LTD Earnings Conference Call - Final.

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Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this conference call to discuss the first quarter 2008 financial and operating results for Anvil Mining Limited announced yesterday, May 12, 2008. Today's call is being recorded. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS).

I would now like to turn the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations for Anvil Mining, Mr. Robert La Valliere. Please go ahead, Sir.

ROBERT LA VALLIERE, VP - IR, ANVIL MINING LIMITED: Thank you, JoAnn, and good morning and thank you for joining us. With me today are Bill Turner, President and CEO; and Craig Munro, Senior Vice President - Corporate and CFO. Today's call is being webcast at CNW Group web site and will be available for rebroadcast for a period of seven days following the completion of this call.

The full first quarter 2008 and year-end MD&A and unaudited and audited financial tables, along with the notes, are available on our website at www.anvilmining.com or on the SEDAR website at sedar.com.

Before we begin I would like to draw your attention to the fact that some of the matters to be discussed in today's call with respect to the future Company performance will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable law. We refer you to our Q1 2008 MD&A filed yesterday on SEDAR and our 2007 annual report and annual information form filed last March 2008 with the Canadian and Australia Securities Maturities concerning factors that could cause results to be different [that] contemplated in today's discussion.

A Q&A session will follow immediately after the remarks of Bill Turner and Craig Munro, and I would like to turn the call over to Bill Turner. Bill?

BILL TURNER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ANVIL MINING LIMITED: Thank you, Robert. Good morning, everybody.

From the quarterly report released yesterday, the Q1 2008 results we have production of just over 12,000 tons of copper in concentrates. This is an increase of around 50% on the comparative period in 2007. We also produced about 490,000 ounces of silver. This was slightly down on the previous corresponding period. [Dow's] revenues $75 million, up 79% from Q1 2007 and net income of $21.4 million. This was up slightly on Q1, 2007 and represents about $0.30 this year.

Despite the Dikulushi operation achieving its copper and silver production targets for the first quarter of 2008, the extraction of ore from underground [slopes] using the sublevel caving methods and the rate of underground development at Dikulushi were less than expected. We are working on rectifying this situation right now. We have connected the hydroelectric power line from the national hydroelectric grid running through the [Muboshi] up to Kinsevere. That's a 27 km powerline and this was electrified in April.

We have begun commissioning of the first of the 27.5 MW electric (inaudible) furnaces at Kinsevere he. This began just over the weekend.

Our construction cost for Kinsevere Stage II SX-EW plant, this is the 60,000 tons a year SX-EW plant, have increased to $380 million. This is an increase of about $123 million from the previously released feasibility study earlier on this year. This revised construction cost estimate reflects the general cost (inaudible) this escalation currently affecting the construction of new projects in the mining sector worldwide and this is something that many companies seem to be facing at this time.

Well, Kinsevere Stage II project, the spent and committed -- what has been spent and committed so far is about $100 million. So we have locked away the prices for all the major capital items; and the total expenditures and committed funds are about a quarter of the total cost.

I would just like to make a couple of comments about the DRC mining review. As I think you all know, the middle of last year the DRC government established a commission to look at the mining agreements in Congo; and they reviewed 61 agreements and issued some notifications to companies in February, in early February, and they issued -- we were issued letters for all of our products projects before Dikulushi, Kulu, and Kinsevere. Those letters were dated the 11th of February and we've made substantial submissions to the Minister of Mines on the 29th of February.

Subsequent to that, [Geekerman] has requested that we have meetings with them to begin discussing the issues that have been raised by the Mining Commission; and at the moment our Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development [Mike O'Sullivan] is in Lubumbashi. He arrived there yesterday and he hopes to meet with Geekerman and move these discussions forward. And I myself am going to [Kenchasa] tomorrow, tomorrow evening and will spend about a week there talking with various ministries to...