MANILA, Philippines -- Australian miner OceanaGold is holding talks with financial firms and rival gold miners about investing in or even buying its troubled copper and gold project in the northern Philippines, the company said Wednesday.

The Didipio project is viewed as a test case for foreign ownership in the Philippine minerals sector, but has been hit by rising costs and turbulent equity markets. OceanaGold halted heavy operations at the site last month while it seeks to raise $185 million through various options.

"These options include funding through debt and to a lesser extent equity, and also through possible joint venture arrangements, asset sales, or equity investments into the Filipino assets or OceanaGold Corp as a whole," said Darren Klinck, a spokesman for the company.

"We have had discussions with five to 10 different firms about their interest in Didipio and their interest in OceanaGold."

Local media have said Gold Fields and Australia's Sino Gold, which shares a chairman with OceanaGold, were interested. Klinck declined to comment on specific companies.

The partial suspension of operations means OceanaGold will miss its previous timetable to start operations in the first half of 2009.

OceanaGold was meant to be one of three major mines due to come on stream in the Philippines by mid-2009 and the only one that was 100-percent foreign-owned.

The government was relying on Didipio to help boost lackluster investment flows into the sector.

Foreign investors are reluctant to pour funds into the Philippines' mining sector after Australia's Lafayette -- the first foreign group to take advantage of more investor-friendly laws -- came close to bankruptcy last year after two cyanide spills at its copper plant resulted in the government closing it down for over a year.

The local government in the province of Nueva Vizcaya, where Didipio is located, tried to halt operations at the site earlier this year after the governor said OceanaGold had declined to pay P30 million ($681,000) for a quarrying permit.

The Court of Appeals temporarily set aside the order.

Only around $1.0 billion has flowed into the Philippine mining industry in overseas investment since 2004 but the government is hoping that this will surge to around $10 billion within the next three years due to record commodity prices and the country's proximity to resource-hungry China.