Chinese mining giant Chinalco to raze Peruvian peak, town of Morococha
Chinese giant raises the bar for mining firms by seeking consensual relocation of a town, and razing of a peak, but hasn't satisfied everyone
They call the Peruvian mountain Toromocho, which means "bull without horns". But to its new Chinese owners, the name is irrelevant: the peak is packed with copper, silver and molybdenum, an element used in alloys. It could be worth as much as US$50 billion. Toromocho must go.
And so must the 5,000 people living in the nearby ramshackle town of Morococha, with its adobe and brick houses, intermittent electricity and no running or safe water. But not everyone wants to leave. Despite a huge effort by the Chinese to build a new town 10 kilometres down the road, locals are sceptical. Last month, police ejected dozens of residents from a roadblock on Peru's central highway, which passes the town.
"All this move has created is fights and divisions," said Aina Calderon, a 67-year-old lifelong Morococha resident. "The company doesn't respect that some of us don't want to leave."
Razing a 4,000-metre mountain or building a town from scratch: it's hard to say which is the more remarkable feat about this endeavour, and which better epitomises the good and bad aspects of the resources boom.
Chinese mining giant Chinalco will start scraping the land next year, having bought it for US$860 million and invested US$2.2 billion. The town will be swallowed by the mine's crater, from which will be taken a million tonnes of copper, four million ounces of silver and 10,000 tonnes of molybdenum a year for 35 years.
No less impressive is the new town of Carhuacoto. It has street lighting, green areas, a modern sewage and waste-water treatment plant, a police station, a health clinic, spacious, well-equipped primary and secondary schools and seven churches.