News Roundup for Overseas Copper Market

SHANGHAI, Dec 13 (SMM) – This is a news roundup for the overseas copper market last week.

1. Peruvian government officials said they could not reach an agreement to lift the blockade of the key distribution channels used by MMG Ltd’s Las Bambas copper mine. The earth road from the mine to the seaport has been blocked by residents of Chumbivilcas province for 18 days. They are negotiating a contract to hire locals as the mine’s drivers. However, the mine did not agree to these conditions. Las Bambas warned that if the situation is not resolved, it will have to suspend production this week because it cannot deliver supplies to the mine.

2. Ivanhoe confirmed that no new variant cases have been detected in the company’s Kamoa-Kakula and Kipushi projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, although there have been some infections among employees and contractors working on the company’s Platreef project in South Africa. But all people who have been infected so far have either no symptoms or very mild symptoms. Approximately 92% of Ivanhoe's Thornton team and approximately 86% of Platreef employees and contractors are vaccinated against Covid-19. At the same time, Ivanhoe plans to provide the latest progress of the Kamoa-Kakula Phase II expansion this week, and is expected to provide the latest information on the development progress of the Platreef project soon.

3. Aguila Copper announced that it has signed an agreement with a private company in British Columbia to secure 28 mining rights and 90% of the rights to a mineral lease in the Sherridon mining area in central western Manitoba, with a total area of 4,968 hectares. Sherridon is one of Canada’s famous volcano-hosted large-scale sulphide (VHMS) mining camps. The Sherritt Gordon deposit in Sherridon was mined from 1931 to 1951. During this period, 7.74 million mt of ore was mined, with an average copper grade of 2.46%, zinc grade of 2.84%, 0.6 g/mt of gold and 33 g/mt of silver. Aguila said that with the completion of a series of exploration in the area, many sulphide lump deposits have been discovered.