On July 3, 2007, Lundin Mining and Tenke Mining Corp. finalized their business compilation, potentially the most substantial step to date in Lundin’s aggressive growth program. Tenke’s South American assets and $5 million have been conveyed to a new Torontolisted company called Suramina Resources Inc. Paul Conibear, Tenke’s president, will be president and CEO of Suramina and will join Lundin Mining as senior vice-president of projects.

Lukas H. Lundin, chairman of Lundin Mining, commented, “The merger of Lundin Mining and Tenke is a major leap forward toward our goal of building Lundin Mining into the world’s premier base metals producer. The Tenke Fungurume asset is truly worldclass and is without question the largest new copper development in many years.

The deposits are so extensive and widespread within the 1,500-km2 concession area that they virtually represent an entire mining district in themselves. Construction of the first phase of operations of the mine is well underway and both shareholders and the local community in the DRC can expect to enjoy the benefits for many years to come.”

At the time of writing Lundin had also effectively completed the transactions relating to Rio Narcea Gold Mines Ltd. In late June, Lundin improved its per share offer to C$5.50 (from C$5) and as of July 19, acquired approximately 84% of fully diluted RNGM shares outstanding, forming a new Rio Narcea board headed by Karl-Axel Waplan, Lundin Mining’s president and CEO.

On August 5 Lundin announced that the planned sale of Rio’s Tasiast gold project in Mauritania to Toronto-based Red Back Mining had been completed, the new owner paying $225 million in cash plus $52.9 million to retire debt related to the project. Rio had completed cold commissioning at Tasiast, which is located 162 km east-southeast of the port of Nouadhibou—which handles Mauritania’s substantial iron ore exports. If Red Back maintains the development schedule, Tasiast might yield as much as 50,000 oz of gold by the end of 2007.

In April, Rio Narcea sold its closed gold operations and exploration properties in northern Spain to another Toronto company, Kinbauri Gold Corp., so that Lundin now owns primarily the Aguablanca nickel-copper-PGM operation located about 100 km north of Sevilla in southern Spain. In first quarter 2007 the plant yielded concentrates containing 3.6 million lb nickel and the same weight of copper by milling 406,800 mt ore from the open-pit mine. Aguablanca also continued planning for underground mining. When the Aljustrel project is completed later this year close to the Somincor Neves-Corvo facility, Lundin will have three mines operating in the Iberian pyrite belt.

Rio Narcea has also built up an approximately 20% interest in Chariot Resources Ltd, whose Marcona copper project in southern Peru the firm believes to have potential for low cost copper production, and has exploration properties in Spain and Portugal, including the 4,600-km2 Ossa Morena project area.