Mercator Minerals Ltd said its Mineral Park copper-molybdenum mine in northwestern Arizona delivered record molybdenum production in December.

The Vancouver-headquartered base metals miner said it had 541,563 pounds of production at the mine, closing out a year of substantially increased production levels for the company.

During the fourth quarter, the company produced 1.5 million pounds of molybdenum and for the year production was 4.3 million pounds. Copper production was 7.9 million pounds for the quarter and 32.2 million pounds for the year.

Silver production came in at 148,463 ounces in the fourth quarter and 465,736 ounces for the year.

Mr Mike Surratt president and CEO of Mercator said "Mineral Park continues its expansion program, which will see further and demonstrable increases in production to what is already one of the largest long life mines in North America."

In addition to its mine in Arizona, Mercator is developing the El Pilar copper project in Mexico.

(Sourced from www.winnipegfreepress.com)