[Peru Indigenous community bids for part of MMG's Las Bambas copper concession]

Published: Oct 20, 2026 09:10 (GMT+8)

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An Indigenous community in Peru has offered to buy mining rights to part of MMG Ltd.'s Las Bambas copper concession worked by about 3,000 artisanal miners, a proposal seen by Bloomberg shows. Pamputa community would formalise those operations and MMG would buy their output; government-facilitated talks are due in Cusco on Friday. Las Bambas supplies almost 2% of global mined copper and cost 10 billion USD to build; MMG, a China Minmetals unit, bought it from Glencore in 2014 and started output in 2016. Artisanal miners have taken about 90,000 tonnes of contained copper from the Apu Chunta quarry, trucking ore over 640 km to plants. The dispute has delayed a third pit. Peru plans to let the Reinfo registry lapse at end-2026, giving registered diggers two years to formalise.

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