Peru communities protesting Las Bambas mine to meet President Castillo

Reuters | May 24, 2022 | 9:24 am Intelligence Top Companies Latin America Copper

Communities protesting against Las Bambas set up new conditions to negotiate with Peruvian government

A 2021 meeting with farming communities protesting MMG’s Las Bambas copper mine in Peru. (Reference image by Peru’s Presidency of the Ministers’ Council, Flickr).

A group of Peruvian indigenous communities that have been protesting MMG Ltd’s huge Las Bambas copper mine will meet with President Pedro Castillo on Tuesday in Lima in a new bid to defuse the crisis, a community leader told Reuters.

Edison Vargas, the President of the Fuerabamba community, said the groups hoped to present their problems to Castillo, a leftist president who came to office last year pledging to redistribute mining wealth in the world’s No. 2 copper producer.

Las Bambas, which supplies 2% of global copper, suspended operations on April 20 due to the protests and has been unable to restart production since, the most severe crisis the Chinese-owned mine has faced.

(By Marco Aquino and Marcelo Rochabrun)