By Teresa Cespedes
LIMA (Reuters) - Southern Copper <PCU.N, a leading global copper producer, expects to invest about $1.3 billion in its Peruvian copper project Los Chancas, Chief Executive Oscar Gonzalez said on Tuesday.
The investments would be in addition to some $2 billion the miner announced late last year for Peru, Gonzalez said at the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit.
"We estimate it could be a total investment of approximately $1.3 billion," he said. "It's an investment that wasn't included in the $2.1 billion we mentioned last October."
Southern Copper, a unit of Grupo Mexico (GMEXICOB.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), has completed a pre-feasibility study for Los Chancas that shows annual copper production of 80,000 tonnes a year, Gonzalez said. The feasibility study, to start in May or June, should be completed by the end of this year.
"What we don't know yet is if it will be in copper concentrate or copper cathodes," he said.
Another of its copper projects in Peru, called Tia Maria, should see construction start in early 2009 for a mine that would produce about 120,000 tonnes of copper a year, he said. Production would likely start in 2010.
Gonzalez also said Southern would produce 650,000 tonnes of copper this year at its mines in Mexico and Peru, up from 592,000 tonnes last year.
Molybdenum output should fall slightly this year to 14,000 tonnes from 16,190 tonnes last year, because of lower grade deposits, he said. Continued...
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