Investment bank questions bullish growth forecasts
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BMO Capital Markets said a presentation in Arequipa by the minister in which he claimed the country's copper output could grow 27% on last year's levels by 2022 implied about 3 million tonnes per annum of new copper production.
"Although new mines such as Quellaveco will boost output, we are significantly more cautious on project delivery and see about 2.5Mt as a more realistic 2022 level," the bank's analysts said.
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"[This year] is struggling to see any growth.
"On the basis of the current project pipeline, we model Peru's output as peaking in 2024."
BMO said in a recent note Peru's copper output in the first half of 2019 was up about 2.7% year-on-year, but "still below the same period in 2017".
"The consistent 500,000tpa-plus growth rates seen over the 2015-16 period are very much in the past," it said.
BMO also said neighbour Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, was encountering similar "growth struggles".
"As the largest and second-largest copper producing countries in the world, trends in supply from Chile and Peru can have a major influence in market dynamics," it said.
"Chile has had a perennial problem with copper growth, despite sustained investment in new operations. [While] 2018 was a record year … helped by a strong recovery at the world's largest copper mine, Escondida, disruptions have returned [in 2019] in the forms of Atacama rains and a Codelco labour disruption."