Peru's copper output is expected to grow between 2% and 4% this year, said the head of The National Society of Mining, Oil and Energy (SNMPE), Julia Torreblanca. That would put Peru's copper production between 2.79-million and 2.85-million metric tons, compared to 2.74-million tons last year.Torreblanca said in an interview with Reuters, on the sidelines of the CESCO and CRU copper conferences in Chile, that the government was working to streamline the permitting process so that miners could ramp up production more quickly. Peru is the world's third-biggest producer of the red metal, after being displaced as number ... (full story)