Losses at copper and cobalt hopeful Adastra Minerals rose 20 per cent to £2.23 million in the year to October, taking the cumulative deficit to £21 million, but chief executive officer Tim Read declares last year's 'tremendous momentum' will be maintained and sees output by late 2007 from the company's Kolwezi copper and cobalt tailings project in Congo. Robert Tyerman reports.

AIM-quoted Adastra, formerly America Mineral Fields, says a final feasibility study into the Kolwezi tailings deposits (left over from earlier mining whose techniques failed to extract much of the mineral content of the ore) is now in its final phase, carried out by independent experts GRD Minproc and Murray & Roberts. Adastra owns 82.5 per cent of Kolwezi, which has an estimated resource of 113 million tonnes at 1.49 per cent copper and 0.32 per cent cobalt, has said it could cost £166 million to bring it into production.

In the autumn the company signed a memorandum of understanding with Belgian minerals giant Umicore to reach a long-term agreement to supply cobalt to Umicore, which will also provide technical assistance to develop Kolwezi. Umicore holds five per cent (with warrants to take that to 9.6 per cent) of Adastra, which hopes eventually to produce 7,000 tonnes of cobalt and 42,000 tonnes of copper a year from Kolwezi and has additionally resumed talks with Congo's state mining company Decamines about restoring production at the Kipushi zinc and copper mine near the Zambian border.

At 74.5p, Adastra shares, down 0.5p today, are 50 per cent up on Growth Company Investor's recommendation at 49.5p last August but remain well below early 2004 highs of £1 and more. Some cautious profit-taking could be prudent, but they could have significantly further to go in the long term.