Just one month after announcing that the Tía María mining project, located in Arequipa, would begin construction “at the time considered most appropriate, since there is no specific date,” Grupo México announced through an internal memorandum dated June 28, the resumption of development activities on the copper project as of this Monday, July 1.
In the internal memo sent to all mining personnel, Grupo México’s CEO, Oscar Gonzales Rocha, indicated that there has been progress in the work of conditioning and preparing the copper mine area.
According to the transnational, these works should be considered as “part of the project costs, that is, affected by mining returns.”
“Given the political and social conditions in the province of Islay, the region and at the national level, the resumption of activities in the Tía María project is announced on July 1, 2024”points out the document to which the El Foco portal had access.
Gonzales Rocha says that since obtaining authorization for Tía María in 2019, they have been “holding meetings with the government to determine the most appropriate time to begin construction of the mine.”
The senior executive also states that the condition of the stored equipment and the validity of the engineering studies, as well as other intangibles, must be evaluated with the objective of “recording the necessary adjustments.”
In a letter sent in May to the Securities Market Superintendence (SMV), Grupo México SAB, Majority shareholder of Southernclarified that the company has the necessary resources to begin the execution of the project in the Tambo Valley.
Last month, in statements to La República, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Rómulo Mucho, said during the XV International Mining Symposium, that the credentials for Tía María were ready, the only thing left was for the company itself to make the construction date of the project official before the Peruvian Government.
In 2009, Aunt Maria was paralyzed due to problems associated with its Environmental Impact Study (EIA). In 2014, the Government and the company presented another. For this reason, the project has not yet left the “detail engineering” stage. Although for Minem everything is resolved, a controversy persists around the impact on local agriculture.
4 million tons of copper in 2024
● In statements made in May to La República, Southern Peru’s Vice President of Finance, Raúl Jacob, said that the company has a portfolio of no less than 500,000 MT of the red metal that will contribute to Peru reaching 4 million MT each year, higher than the current forecast for 2024 of 3 million MT.
● It is expected that the fully operational mine would produce between 120,000 and 150,000 tons of copper per year.
Source: Larepublica
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