Spence, located in northern Chile, is expected to produce 200,000 tonnes of copper cathodes annually. The project will cost about $800 million to develop.

Though the environmental impact study, submitted in April, requests to begin construction next year and start production in 2005, the Australia-based company's board has not approved the project nor that timetable yet, the spokeswoman said.

She said the board was waiting for results of feasibility, engineering and design studies currently being carried out and would also take market conditions into account before making a decision.

"The project is not approved by the board of directors yet. It will be ready once we have received all the information we are currently gathering," Kenneth Pickering, president of BHP-Billiton's base metals division told the newspaper.

BHP-Billiton already has a strong presence in Chile through its 57.5 percent stake in the mammoth Escondida copper mine, which last year produced 794,131 tonnes of copper.

The company has cutback production this year and said cutbacks will extend into 2003. January-November copper output was 662,056 tonnes, down 9.7 percent from 732,914 tonnes in the same months last year.