First Quantum Minerals’ updated NI 43-101 for the La Granja copper project in northern Peru outlines 4.8 billion tonnes of measured and indicated resources at 0.48% Cu (23.0 Mt contained), plus 5.2 billion tonnes inferred at 0.40% Cu (20.7 Mt), based on 832 diamond holes totalling 370,000 metres. The company plans pit-side comminution and slurry transport via a 7 km tunnel to a processing and tailings complex on a flatter Pacific coastal plain ~100 km away, using desalinated seawater as primary supply. Engineering focus centres on managing arsenic as discrete, “packageable” mineral phases to maintain saleable concentrate through a conventional flowsheet under Peru’s strict ESIA regime.

Rosh Pinah Zinc and Appian Capital Advisory have commissioned a new process water treatment plant at the Rosh Pinah mine in Namibia as a core element of the RP2.0 expansion. The plant is engineered to retreat and recycle process water from multiple circuits across the operation, cutting freshwater draw and reducing discharge volumes to the site’s TSF and evaporation facilities. For mine planners and process engineers, the scheme tightens the site water balance and may enable higher throughput under existing abstraction permits.

Copper prices, already up 40% in 2025 and hitting a record $14,500/t in January 2026, are being driven by AI-related demand, supply disruptions and looming cost pressures from energy and sulfuric acid shortages, with the ICSG now forecasting a 150,000 t deficit for 2026. The 10 largest copper mines produced 4.9 Mt in 2025, led by Escondida at 1,347.6 kt, while major assets such as Grasberg and Kamoa-Kakula face landslide, flooding and seismic-related constraints that could remove hundreds of thousands of tonnes from the market. For planners and project developers, the rankings emphasise concentration risk in a handful of long-lived operations and the growing influence of infrastructure bottlenecks, community blockades and state renegotiations on effective supply.