Row over Copper-Gold Mine to be Resolved This Month - Ivanhoe

(REUTERS) -- Ivanhoe Mines Ltd said it expects a ruling on an arbitration dispute with Rio Tinto, its largest shareholder, to be delivered within a couple of weeks.

Deputy chairman Peter Meredith told the Mongolia Investment Summit in London that a ruling could even come next week.

Global miner Rio Tinto owns 48.5 percent of Ivanhoe and initiated the arbitration process in 2010 after Ivanhoe adopted a shareholder rights plan that Rio contends breaches its contractual rights.

Ivanhoe is constructing the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project, home to one of the world's largest-known copper deposits, in Mongolia. The project, 66-percent owned by Ivanhoe, is located about 50 miles from the border with commodity-hungry China.

Meredith said Ivanhoe is still in talks with China over a three or four-year power supply agreement.

Commercial production from Oyu Tolgoi, literally the Turquoise Hill, is expected to start in the first half of 2013.

Average annual output in its first 10 years of commercial output is expected to exceed 650,000 ounces of gold, 3 million ounces of silver and 1.2 billion pounds (544,000 tonnes) of copper.

About 14,000 people are working on the site, of which 8,000 are Mongolian. Oyu Tolgoi is the country's third-largest city.