By Marco Aquino
LIMA (Reuters) -MMG and Hudbay Minerals executives met with Peru’s cabinet chief this week to warn that production at their copper mines could be affected if a two-week protest by informal miners along a major transit route continues, two sources told Reuters on Friday.
The Las Bambas mine of Chinese firm MMG and the Constancia mine of Canadian company Hudbay in the Cusco region are among Peru’s top ten copper producers.
The companies did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
A person familiar with Las Bambas said the site’s production remained normal for now.
Protests in other parts of the country have also affected logistics, including in the gold mining stronghold of Pataz in northern Peru.
July’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to fall 0.2% due to the road impacts, Peru’s central bank said on Friday.
One of the sources, who attended the meeting with MMG and Hudbay, but was not authorized to comment, said concern at Las Bambas and Constancia was mounting over the impediments to copper-loaded trucks to transit freely.
The blockades along a road that connects mines to the coast began in late June as hundreds of informal miners around the country pressed Peru’s government to extend a deadline to regularize their operations.
“Large vehicles that supply and transport the mineral cannot pass,” the person said.
“Both companies are still operating, but they mentioned that if the situation continues for much longer, it could become complicated.”
Las Bambas produced more than 320,000 metric tons of copper last year, making it Peru’s fourth-biggest miner.
Constancia ranked ninth, with about 99,000 tons of copper.
Glencore’s Antapaccay copper mine, which uses the same transit route, has not yet reported production impacts.
Peru is the world’s third-largest copper producer, and it exports most of the red metal to China.
Peru’s cabinet chief, Eduardo Arana, in a statement on Thursday evening said he met with Hudbay and MMG, and emphasized the government’s commitment to fostering dialogue between companies and communities.
The statement did not provide further details about the protests, or address their potential impact on copper output.
In Pataz, gold miner Poderosa said the blockades have hit its operations, particularly over the past week.
“The mining companies in Pataz are severely affected.
We’re now almost without food and basic supplies to operate,” said Poderosa’s corporate affairs head, Pablo de la Flor. The region supplies almost 40% of the country’s gold, its biggest mineral export after copper.
Despite the protests, Peruvian officials aim to end a temporary program that allowed informal mining, called REINFO, by year’s end.
Informal miners have protested numerous times to extend REINFO.
It began in 2012 as a short-term scheme to formalize miners operating outside the law, but has been criticized for enabling illegal mining that harms the environment.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima, Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Matthew Lewis and Marguerita Choy)
