China Minmetals makes first Las Bambas shipment

China Minmetals said it dispatched the first copper shipment from its US$8.3bn Las Bambas copper-silver-molybdenum mine, the third major mine to come online in Peru over the past year.

The mine, located in Apurímac region, made a 10,000t shipment of concentrates to China via the port of Matarani on Friday, the company's MMG unit said in a statement, without providing further details. Las Bambas started trial concentrate production last month.

An update of operations at Las Bambas will be disclosed on January 28, MMG said.

The startup of Las Bambas, the country's largest investment project, comes after Hudbay Minerals' US$1.7bn Constancia and Hochschild Mining's US$455mn Inmaculada mines started production in 2015.

The company managed to complete construction on schedule despite local protests that forced the government to declare a state of emergency in the area last year.

Protests at Las Bambas in September left at least four dead and 15 injured after the local community objected to China Minmetals' decision to scrap a mineral slurry pipeline and build a molybdenum plant in Apurímac instead of in Cusco, involving 125 trucks making daily return trips.

The government, which is struggling to cope with more than 200 ongoing social conflicts as the country gears up for general elections in April, has been holding talks for months with local communities in Apurímac to ease tensions.

The 140,000t/d capacity mine, which has 2,007Mt in resources and 1,079MT in reserves, is designed to produce 450,000t/y copper, 5,000t/y molybdenum, 90,000oz/y gold and 450,000oz/y silver. Las Bambas is part of Peru's US$64bn mining investment portfolio over the next decade, according to the energy and mines ministry MEM.