Chinalco says crisis won't hurt Peru copper project

China's Chinalco said on Tuesday the global economic crisis will not hurt financing for its $2.2 billion Toromocho copper project in Peru, which could boost the country's output of the red metal by as much as 25 percent.

The company expects the mine to start production in the first quarter of 2011, Gerald Wolfe, the company's Peru head told reporters. Mine construction should start in mid-2009. The Toromocho mine would burnish Peru's ranking as the world's No. 2 copper producer after Chile.

'Chinalco is a company with wide access to financing in China and we do not expect any problems,' Wolfe said.

State-owned Chinalco is the parent of Aluminum Corp of China (nyse: ACH - news - people ) (Chalco).

In May, the company exercised its options to develop the project, which is Chinalco's first investment in Peru.

Toromocho has reserves of 2 billion tonnes, with a copper grade of 0.08 percent.

Chinalco is the world's third-largest aluminum producer and China's second-largest copper company.

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