Antamina agrees social investment program

Peru’s government and Minera Antamina, which operates the world’s largest combined copper-zinc mine, reached an agreement with a northern Andean community over social investment projects. A development roundtable in the community of Jangas in Ancash region agreed on 20 million soles ($7.1 million) in infrastructure investment, according to the energy and mines ministry (MEM), BNAmericas reports.

Projects include 9.86 million soles in irrigation and 4.1 million soles in electricity infrastructure, health and education programs and 6.17 million soles in natural disaster prevention and mitigation systems, deputy mining minister Guillermo Shinno said in a statement.

Since 2011, President Ollanta Humala’s government has set up at least 20 development roundtables in Andean communities to ease opposition to mining projects.

Antamina which despite having excellent programs for community development has faced repeated environmental protests since starting up in 2001, completed a $1.3 billion expansion at the end of 2012. The expansion increased ore processing capacity from 94,000t/d to 130,000t/d after exploration work boosted mineral reserves by 77%.

Antamina produced 461,058 t copper, 315,802 t zinc, 4,032 t lead, 4,544 t molybdenum and 520,871 kg silver last year, according to MEM.

Glencore Xstrata and BHP Billiton each own a 33.75% stake in Antamina, while Teck Resources has 22.5% and Mitsubishi owns 10%.