Hudbay President David Garofalo has reported they are increasing their investment in the Lalor Mine project near Snow Lake.  He says the underground portion of the Lalor project remains on time and on budget and basic engineering of the new Lalor concentrator is complete. He adds capital expenditure is expected to be approximately 90 million dollars higher than the original concentrator budget at 253 million dollars bringing Lalor’s total capital construction budget to 794 million dollars.  He says as of January 31st they have invested approximately 326 million of the overall budget with an additional 90 million dollars in commitment.

              Garofalo adds during the last quarter of last year Hudbay’s focus at its 70 percent owned Reed Copper project also near Snow Lake was underground ramp development and completion of surface infrastructure.  He says they have invested around 26 million dollars in the project and have entered into an additional 20.5 million in commitments.