Rio Tinto renews La Granja lease

UK-based miner Rio Tinto, which acquired the La Granja copper property in Peru over a decade ago, renewed the concession, the Peruvian government said.

The company paid US$5mn to continue exploring the property in Peru's Cajamarca region for a further six months, the energy and mines ministry (MEM) said in a statement.

Rio Tinto, which won a bid round for La Granja in 2005, has delayed a development decision due to high levels of arsenic in the orebody, according to Peru's mining society SNMPE. La Granja, one of Peru's biggest undeveloped projects, has estimated resources of 2.77Bt of 0.51% copper and 0.1% zinc.

The company's press office didn't immediately reply to an e-mail seeking comment.

Peru, which relies on the industry for 60% of its export revenue, is counting on US$21bn in mining investment projects to start up by 2021, with recent commitments from Anglo American, Chinalco and Minsur.

Cajamarca, which is home to operations run by Newmont Mining, Gold Fields, Southern Copper, Tahoe Resources and Buenaventura in addition to projects such as Michiquillay and Galeno, has seen bitter conflict in recent years that shelved Newmont's US$4.8bn Minas Conga project.

Rio Tinto, which also has operations in Brazil and Chile, boosted copper production by 38% to 455,800t through the first three quarters of 2018.