Southern Copper delays Los Chancas project in Peru

Southern Copper Corporation delayed the scheduled start of operations of its Los Chancas mining project in Peru.

In 2020, the start-up of this copper mine was scheduled for 2026, but now this date has been postponed to 2027.

At the same time, the estimated investment amount for Los Chancas was reduced from 2,800 million to 2,600 million dollars.

Los Chancas is a new project located in Apurimac, with a porphyry copper and molybdenum deposit.

For now, Southern Copper estimates indicate the presence of 545 million tons of mineralized material with a copper content of 0.59%, moly content of 0.04% and 0.039 grams of gold per ton, as well as 181 million tons of material. Mineralized leachable with a total copper content of 0.357 percent.

Under Southern Copper’s plans, the Los Chancas project envisages an open pit mine with a combined concentrator operation and SX-EW processes to produce 130,000 tons of copper and 7,500 tons of molybdenum annually.

In 2018 and 2019, the company developed social and environmental improvement programs for local communities.

In 2020, Southern Copper continued to work on these activities and plans to complete the project’s environmental impact assessment in 2021.

Southern Copper

Regarding its Michiquillay project, in Cajamarca, on June 12, 2018, the company signed a contract and made an initial payment of 12.5 million dollars for the acquisition of that project.

Southern Copper has created a multidisciplinary management team to plan the development of Michiquillay.

As part of this plan, the company has established contact with local and regional authorities and communities to promote sustainable development programs in the area.

In 2020, it continued to develop social and environmental programs for local communities and we are completing a semi-detailed environmental impact assessment.

This will allow it to start a 50,000 meter diamond drilling program in 2021 to verify and update the project’s estimated mineralized materials.

Michiquillay is a world-class mining project with mineralized material estimated at 1,150 million tons with an estimated copper grade of 0.63 percent.

When developed, Southern Copper expects Michiquillay to produce 225,000 tons of copper per year (along with moly, gold and silver by-products) for an initial mine life of more than 25 years and at a competitive cash cost.

The company projects that an investment of approximately $ 2.5 billion will be required and expects production to begin in 2028.