Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp. (SMC.PH) said Tuesday it may initiate a tender offer to acquire 100% of Indophil Resources NL (IRN.AU), the Australian miner which owns a 37.5% stake in the Tampakan copper-gold project in the country's south.

Last week, San Miguel acquired a 10.1% stake in Indophil for $40 million via a share placement agreement involving 48 million new shares.

A tender offer would be subject to the results of the due diligence that the company will be conducting, San Miguel said in a statement to the stock exchange.

The Tampakan project, controlled by Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN), has a total resource estimate of 2.4 billion metric tons, with a grade of 0.6% copper and 0.2% grams a ton of gold.

The development cost of the project, touted to become the Philippines' biggest mining project, is estimated at US$5.2 billion.

-By Rhea Sandique-Carlos, Dow Jones Newswires; 632-848-5051; rhea.sandique-carlos@dowjones.com