SÃO PAULO — The first commercial-grade copper from Xstrata Plc’s Antapaccay Mine in southern Peru has been delivered to the country’s Maratani Port for export, the company said.

The project, which will have a 20-year life span, is expected to progressively ramp up to a processing capacity of 70,000 tonnes per day by the first half of 2013.

Antapaccay Mine is expected to produce about 160,000 tonnes per year of copper in concentrate.

"I am delighted to announce that we commenced production at our major Antapaccay project on schedule and in line with the original budget of $1.5 billion, a significant achievement for a project undertaken through a period of industry inflation and global economic uncertainty," Xstrata Copper chief executive officer Charlie Sartain said in a statement.

"The Antapaccay deposit has recently been expanded by 30 percent to an estimated total mineral resource of over 1 billion tonnes at a grade of 0.49-percent copper using a cutoff grade of 0.15-percent copper, including gold and silver by-products. The mineral resource contains 5 million tonnes of copper metal," Xstrata said.

Antapaccay is located about six miles from the Tintaya open-pit mine—an Xstrata copper project at which mining activities are scheduled to end in the coming months—and benefits from Tintaya’s existing administrative and logistics infrastructure and experienced work force.

Tintaya is scheduled for decommissioning beginning in February, sources told AMM sister publication Metal Bulletin.