MERGER: First Quantum to swallow Antares Minerals

VANCOUVER - First Quantum Minerals and Antares Minerals of Waterdown, ON, have entered into a plan of arrangement whereby a subsidiary of First Quantum will acquire all of the securities issued by Antares. At $6.35 per Antares share, the deal is worth a total of $460 million.

Antares' principal asset is its Haquira copper project in Southern Peru, adjacent to Xstrata's Las Bambas copper-gold mine. The Haquira property may someday be a large-scale copper mine. It has both near-surface mineralization amenable to SX-EW leaching and a larger, underlying deposit of high-grade copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry mineralization suitable for recovery using a conventional concentrator.

The preliminary economic assessment for Haquira proposed a 30,000 t/d SX-EW and simultaneous 100,000 t/d flotation concentrator. Production would average 509 million lb of copper during the first 10 years of full production, with an estimated mine life of 20 years. The initial capital expenditure would be US$2.06 billion. Cash costs are estimated to be US$0.89/lb for the first 10 years and US$1.04/lb over the life of the mine. (See also www.AntaresMinerals.com)

First Quantum (www.FirstQuantum.com) operates the Frontier copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Guelb Moghrein copper-gold mine in Mauritania and the Kansanshi copper-gold mine in Zambia.