A potential outage was averted this week after communities blocking access roads to the Chinese-owned Las Bambas mine high in the Andes removed barricades after the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency in the remote region.
According to a Reuters report locals who were demanding payment for the use of the road near the town of Challhuahuacho did not resist police orders to remove the blockade Thursday and operations at the mine has returned to normal.
Australian operator MMG said production at the mine which started operations in December 2015 was not affected. Output is expected to be between 420,000–460,000 tonnes in 2017 (and not insubstantial quantities of molybdenum, gold and silver) placing the mine in the top five worldwide. In October copper exports from the mine were halted for ten days amid clashes with security forces that left one protestor dead.
Source: MMG
