NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Bermuda-based Orient Express Hotels Ltd. may invest in a $2 billion project that would extend its Peruvian rail network to Brazil, the company's Peru manager Laurent Carrasset said.

Orient Express is seeking a government concession to build and operate the 528-mile cargo railway, Carrasset said in an interview in Lima yesterday. The new tracks would extend the company's 500-mile railway in Peru's southern Andes to the jungle town of Inapari on the Brazilian border.

"This is a huge project, and we're very interested in getting the concession," Carrasset said. "We're assessing lots of government projects where there is potential for tourism or freight."

Companies are investing in rail projects in Peru to handle growing demand for mineral and agricultural cargo, including a $1.5 billion railroad to link northern gold and copper mines to the coast, Transport Minister Enrique Cornejo said in September. Orient Express last month completed a $25 million upgrade of a rail line serving Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s copper mine in southern Peru, Carrasset said.

The company resumed limited train service to the historic Machu Picchu site last week after flood damage forced the railway's closure in January. Occupancy rates in Orient Express Peruvian hotels fell to as low as 20 percent during February and March as tourists cancelled their visits to the ruins, Carrasset said.

Trains may be able to travel the full length of the 80-mile railway between Cuzco and the Inca ruins by the end of September, once the "tons" of rocks still covering parts of the line have been removed and the track is repaired, he said.

"Tourist activity in Peru should be back to normal by the third quarter of this year," Carrasset said. "Next year the industry could grow 10 percent."

Orient Express plans to open its sixth hotel in the South American country next year and is studying two new hotel projects in northern Peru, Carrasset said.