Newmont Mining Corp., the world’s second-largest gold producer, is finding its biggest growth project runs through lakes and land belonging to some of the poorest farmers in Peru’s northern Andes. Work has stopped at the Minas Conga gold and copper project four months after Newmont approved the $4.8 billion mine, following two weeks of clashes between police and demonstrators, who say the project threatens to deplete their water supply. At stake in the dispute is Peru’s largest investment project, a mine that would yield $2 billion of metal a year at current prices in Latin America’s seventh-largest economy, a nation of 30 million where 7.3 percent are unemployed. The project shows how competing water interests from communities and industry threaten to derail the world’s next generation of mines and petroleum resources. “This is a core growth project,” said Adrian Day, president of Adrian Day’s Asset Management in Annapolis, Maryland, which manages $190 million, including Newmont shares. “If it goes on much beyond a few months, I would think it is going to be very serious for Newmont.”
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