Top copper producers show some love for Peru’s leftist leader

Some of the world’s biggest miners say they like what they’re hearing from Peru’s new leftist government of late, further easing fears that drastic policy changes could stall future output in the No. 2 copper nation.  

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. boss Richard Adkerson said Thursday at an industry event that he was left “encouraged” from a recent meeting with President Pedro Castillo, a former rural union activist from a Marxist party. At the same conference two days earlier, BHP Group’s president for minerals in the Americas, Ragnar Udd, complimented the government’s “strategic” approach.

The praise marks a sharp turnaround from the investor anxiety that surrounded elections in April, when Castillo vowed to nationalize assets, block projects and take a bigger share of the mineral windfall to fight poverty. The polarizing process spurred concern that a far more onerous operating environment would derail investments needed to help fill a looming copper supply gap as the world tries to wean itself off fossil fuels.