Zambia's Lumwana Mine owned by Australia-based Equinox Minerals will see the mine's life being doubled to 37 years from the original 18 years after an overall increase in copper ore reserves was discovered.

Equinox chief executive Craig Williams was cited by Saturday's Times of Zambia as saying in a statement that the total Lumwana measured and indicated resource was revised showing an overall increase of 21 percent.

Equinox has since mandated an additional 60 million U.S. dollars in loans, expanding the total Lumwana project debt facility to 415 million dollars.

In addition, Equinox had mandated the asset-backed financing of the Lumwana mining fleet for a total of 133.3 million dollars.

Construction activities, which kicked off in 2005, have since continued to ramp up and it is expected that the mine would be put into operation in 2007.

Located in North Western province of Zambia, Lumwana is considered as one of the world's largest undeveloped copper deposits. It will become the largest copper mine in Zambia upon completion exceeding the current leading Konkola mine owned by India-based Vedanta Resources Plc.

Source: Xinhua