The Vancouver Sun reports in its Wednesday edition Taseko has sunk about $300-million into equipment that will increase production and reserves at its 75-per-cent-owned Gibraltar copper-moly mine in the central Interior. The Sun's James Kwantes reports the strategy appears to be paying off. For the three months ended June 30, Gibraltar produced 38.5 million pounds of copper and 667,000 pounds of molybdenum -- increases of 37 per cent and 100 per cent, respectively. Gibraltar is Canada's second-largest open-pit copper mine and one of the largest employers in the Cariboo, with 700 workers. The Sun quotes Taseko chief executive officer Russ Hallbauer as saying, "We're in the early stages of really starting to make it purr like a fine-tuned machine." Gibraltar's site costs are down to about $2 per pound of copper, putting the company on solid footing in case of a downturn in prices. Copper now sells for about $3.16 a pound. Gibraltar is starting to generate "significant" cash flow for Taseko, a trend that will accelerate if metal prices increase. Mr. Hallbauer is a third-generation miner. His father Bob was a Teck senior vice-president. His grandfather was a master mechanic in a gold mining area near Nelson.