“Copper price will trade at $5 a pound next year”

What has been the economic impact of social conflicts for mining?
––We must define if it is about social conflict or if it is confused with a political conflict. This is clearly political in nature and this has hindered mining operations. At a global level, before we made 7% of the copper production, now we make half and we went from third place in main producers to tenth, because they do not let us advance.

What has been the loss for the country?
––Las Bambas (Apurímac) lost a million and a half soles per day, the GDP of this region is today 7% below, Las Bambas represents 70% of its GDP and the worst thing is that everything can continue and can cause higher losses on
everything in Cusco and Apurímac, because both receive benefits. The State stopped receiving 4.5 million daily income because of the strikes. In 2022 Las Bambas produced 250,000 tons of fine copper and has a capacity to produce 400,000 tons, but from 2016 to date they have stopped for more than 400 days.

New strikes were announced, what does this mean for investors?
––We are in political uncertainty that obviously affects the decision of investors, the perception of our country is much worse than what we had
years ago. In the last 30 years we have achieved extremely important achievements. Poverty dropped from 60% to 20%, placing the country in the middle class, the problem is that uncertainty could make us regress all the progress and that does not matter to the Protestants.

The population considers that mining leaves very little income and is used as an argument in the protests.
––Corruption is one of the determining factors in the quality of investment. That is the problem, we give what they ask of us, but look at the 60% that must be used in works that close gaps, at least 20% of the investments go to building stadiums, instead of going to education or health and they always blame the mining company that has already paid their taxes.

The possible withdrawal of Zafranal in Arequipa is voiced before the position of the regional government to take away their land.
–This disaster must be avoided. If we look at where copper is produced in the country, we only have two important regions, Cusco and Moquegua. All the others have only one project, so when it ends, what do they keep? The explorations are paralyzed because of permits. He asked me: where are the minerals going to come from that are going to give stability to that region in the future?
In Arequipa it is simple, Cerro Verde is finished and there is no other project. In Ancash the same thing happens with Antamina, in Tacna with Toquepala and in Ica with Mina Justa. The Arequipeños have already stopped Tía María and now Zafranal, they are the ones who are going to be harmed later. They paralyze mining for ideological reasons. Before it was the environmental discourse, now it is a political discourse that accuses mining of not giving enough to the regions, but let’s ask the regional governors how things are.

How is the price of copper doing?
––It has gone down but due to a global recession, nothing serious or long-lasting. Our projections say that in the second half of next year the price of copper will be at 5 dollars a pound, today it is at 4. For this reason, Peru should produce 50 million tons, now it is only 25. Countries like Peru and Chile, the two main copper producers, we have a golden opportunity this year to generate our development.
This year we could reach 2.8 million tons despite the conflicts, but only if we had the political decision to unlock the projects between the two of us, we produce 52% of copper worldwide, this part of the world would be the world’s corner of copper. At least Chile is clear about it, despite its problems, the population knows that copper is Chile’s salary, perhaps copper is not also Peru’s salary.

What do you plan to do with the new strikes? The main objective is usually the mining corridor.
––We should ask the government and politicians what they plan to do, we are not in charge of defending the rule of law, we only have to demand its compliance. We constantly have dialogue tables, but the problem is that a large part of the complaints do not even include the mine, but rather the central government.