China Minmetals sharpens drill bits for Peru campaign

China Minmetals, which is nearing completion of its US$8.3bn Las Bambas copper project in Peru, plans to drill 100,000m at the property next year in a bid to expand reserves.

The company to date has explored 10% of the 35,000ha property, where it has drilled 350,000m since 2004, said Luis Rivera, head of the firm's Peruvian unit. Las Bambas currently has reserves for 6.9Mt of 0.73% copper and resources for 10.5Mt of 0.61% copper.

The company, due to invest US$2.4bn in the project this year, has the mine 95% complete, Rivera said at the Perumin mining conference in the southern highland city of Arequipa. The company has started pre-commissioning and demobilizing large contractor firms prior to starting up next year, he said.

The 140,000t/d capacity Apurímac region mine, designed to produce 450,000t/y copper, 5,000t/y molybdenum, 90,000oz/y gold and 450,000oz/y silver, will stockpile 10Mt of ore for future processing, Rivera said.

The company is working on a road and rail system to transport concentrates from the mine to the southern coastal port of Matarani, where it will share port facilities with Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold's Cerro Verde mine and Glencore's Antapaccay deposit.

Las Bambas is the largest project in Peru's US$64bn mining investment portfolio over the next decade, according to the energy and mines ministry (MEM).

The government is counting on Las Bambas, Chinalco's US$3.5bn Toromocho operation, Hudbay Minerals' US$1.7bn Constancia deposit and Freeport's US$4.6bn expansion of its Cerro Verde mine to help double the country's copper output to 2.8Mt/y by 2017.