Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), the country's top producer of aluminum, announced Tuesday that its copper mining in Peru has resumed operation.

Chinalco halted its Toromocho Project in central Peru on March 28 after Peru's environmental protection agency ordered it to suspend copper mining activities until Chinalco stopped waste water spillover.

The mining giant immediately launched checks and found the spillover was caused by rainfall, the company previously said.

Chinalco solved the problem and upgraded the water management system in the mining project before Thursday, the company said in a statement filed to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Peru's authorities lifted the restrictions on Chinalco's copper mining activities in Toromocho Project after on-site inspections on Friday, the statement said.

The company resumed the project with the goal of achieving full production capacity in the third quarter of 2014 and providing China with 220,000 tons of copper concentrate every year, equal to 18 percent of the country's copper production, according to the statement.

A subsidiary of Chinalco said in late March that the Peruvian environmental watchdog's order of halting one of its mining projects will not affect the commissioning at its processing plant and other ancillary operations.

Chinalco has been developing the Toromocho Project since 2008 in Peru, the world's second-biggest copper producer.

Shares in Chinalco dropped by 2 percent to HK$0.98 ($0.13) when trading closed on Tuesday, while Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index fell by 1.6 percent. 

Xinhua - Global Times
Newspaper headline: Chinalco's Peru copper mine resumes operations