In Peru, the aggregate amount of investments in mining increased by 20% over the first four months of 2013 against the same period in the previous year, reaching $2.626 billion, Minister of Energy and Mining (MEM) Jorge Merino recently announced. Merino said that these indicators confirm that Peru is still an attractive mining destination for investors worldwide. The company investing the highest amount was Xstrata Las Bambas, which assigned $540 million (90.2% more than the previous year) to the execution of the megaproject of the same name located in the province of Cotabambas (Apurímac). Second place went to Minera Chinalco, with $296 million (36.6% more than in 2012), for the execution of Toromocho, a copper project located in the Junín region.
Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde follows with an investment of $237 million (78.1% more than the amount invested in 2012) for the expansion of a polymetallic project (copper, gold and molybdenum) in Arequipa.
Merino declared that the positive trend in the progress and development of large-scale projects translated into greater direct employment opportunities. Accordingly, as of April 2013, 216,000 professionals and qualified technicians were working in different mining entities, a figure significantly higher than the one reported in April 2012 (197,059).
However, in May, Reuters reported that Glencore Xstrata has agreed to sell Las Bambas to a buyer approved by China’s monopoly watchdog by September 15, 2014 in exchange for Beijing’s blessing over Glencore’s $35 billion acquisition of Xstrata, completed in April. Xstrata approved development of Las Bambas over a four-year period in August 2010, four months before Glencore first unveiled merger plans with Xstrata.
“We are very happy with the quality of the investment and the standards… that have been developed by Xstrata,” Merino said on the side of conference promoting Latin American mining projects. “We expect as a government to keep that standard,” he said.
Reuters reported that “according to media reports, Glencore Xstrata has appointed BMO Capital markets and Credit Suisse to identify potential buyers of the Las Bambas project, which is one of the largest copper-mining prospects in the world. Analyst’s valuations of the project range from about $4.4 billion to nearly $7 billion.
“Large Chinese resource companies such as Chinalco and MMG Ltd are among a list of potential buyers.”
Las Bambas is planned to produce a minimum of 400,000 t/y of copper, with commissioning to start in late 2014. At that rate, it would be close in production to Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi mine, which has just begun shipping concentrate in Mongolia and about half the size of the BHP Billiton-controlled Escondida mine in Chile, the world’s largest.
Glencore Xstrata yesterday announced the commencement of a process to sell its entire interest in the Las Bambas copper mine project. It has appointed BMO Capital Markets and Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) to act as financial advisors in connection with the sale process.
After resizing the Toromocho project (Junín) because of the larger than expected reserves, Chinalco has decided to increase to $4.8 billion the total amount invested in this important Peruvian copper project. “This is a very important investment, that demonstrates our reliable legal framework and the characteristics of the Peruvian geology,” said Merino, after supervising the progress of the construction works at Toromocho.
It has 1,500 Mt of proven copper reserves; however “as the project advances, this figure will surely increase, because of its validity period of 25 years that may be extended”.
Toromocho, generator of 12,000 jobs, is expected to begin its production stage in December and reach an operating output of 300,000 t/y of fine copper, and not the 270,000 t estimated in a first projection.
“This project, together with Cerro Verde, Las Bambas, Antapaccay, Constanza and others, will allow Peru to produce after mid-2015 more than 2.8 Mt of fine copper per year, which make us recover the second place among the world’s top copper producers,” Merino said.
He added that Peru is an attractive country for investors due to its geographical location, with competitive production costs which are the cheapest of the region.