TSX-listed First Quantum Minerals is set for “another important year” as the Cobre Panama project, in Panama, is gearing up to start production, chairperson and CEO Philip Pascall said on Thursday, announcing the miner’s fourth-quarter and year-end results.

He reported that the development of Cobre Panama was nearing completion, with the focus now on construction completion, commissioning of the process plant and commissioning of ramp-up of the power station.

During the fourth quarter, project pre-strip was completed, engineering and procurement were essentially completed, and the tailings management facility earthworks advanced to 87% completion.

Construction of the two power sets was completed in the fourth quarter with commissioning well advanced and the reliability and ramp-up for set 1 programme completed in January 2019. Set 2 is in full commissioning with synchronisation to the grid having occurred in January.

Pascall said that the start-up of Cobre Panama, combined with steady output from its existing mines, would result in “significantly higher” production in 2019.

The miner is forecasting between 140 000 t and 175 000 t of contained copper from its new mine in 2019, taking total output for the year to between 700 000 t and 735 000 t.

This compares with total output of 605 853 t in 2018 and 573 963 t in 2017. Gold production amounted to 185 414 oz in 2018, down from 199 736 oz in 2017.

Fourth-quarter output came to 158 304 t of copper and included a record 60 840 from the Sentinel mine, in Zambia.

First Quantum reported comparative earnings of $487-million, or $0.71 a share, net earnings attributable to company shareholders of $441-million, or $0.64 a share, and cash flows from operating activities of $1.9-billion, or $2.88 a share, for the full year period ended December 31, 2018.

For the fourth quarter of the year, comparative earnings were $182-million, or $0.26 a share, net earnings attributable to company shareholders were $198-million, or $0.29 a share, and cash flows from operating activities were $338-million, or $0.49 a share.

Full year unit costs of copper production were at an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of $1.74/lb, C1 was $1.28/lb and C3 was $2.11/lb.

The base metals miner generated more than $1.9-billion of cash flows from operating activities throughout 2018.