Ivanhoe Mines, Canadian mining company focused on advancing its three principal projects in Southern Africa, has announced the completion of Phase 3 concentrator construction at its Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ahead of schedule and on budget.
According to a report shared with the media, Ivanhoe’s Executive Co-Chair Robert Friedland and President Marna Cloete said that on May 26, 2024, first ore was fed into the Phase 3 concentrator at the plant’s Kamoa-Kakula copper complex.
This marks the completion of construction of the Phase 3 concentrator, which has been achieved months ahead of schedule and also on budget with first concentrate expected in early June, while ramp-up to commercial production is targeted for early in the third quarter.
“The Kamoa-Kakula operations team continues its industry-leading execution with the early and on-budget delivery of the Phase 3 concentrator and underground mining operations … a rare feat in an industry plagued by cost overruns and delays when it comes to complex, world-scale projects,” said Friedlan.
“Meanwhile, we have experienced much-improved power stability over the second quarter following our team’s proactive response to grid instability experienced in the southern DRC grid. As a result, we’ve seen materially higher head grades and improved production over the past two months. We expect a stronger second quarter from Kamoa-Kakula’s operations, reinforcing our confidence that production will align with annual guidance,” he added.
The Executive Co-Chair went ahead to comment: “Given the outperformance of Kamoa-Kakula’s operations to date, including higher than expected throughput and recoveries at the Phase 1 and Phase 2 concentrators, we are now studying options to boost copper production towards our next goal of 800,000 tonnes per annum … a production rate that would propel the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex towards being one of the two largest copper producers on our planet.”
“In addition,” said Friedlan, “To the de-bottlenecking of the Phase 3 concentrator and increasing recoveries to 95% via our ‘Project 95’ initiative, we are now also studying options to accelerate the Phase 4 expansion at Kamoa-Kakula to target a throughput rate of at least 20 million tonnes annually. We believe this expanded throughput rate would unlock substantial value for our stakeholders and shareholders in the near and long term given the current copper market, and the expansive copper resources and reserves in proximity of the milling complex.”
According to Friedlan, it is only early days in terms of the broader copper growth story at Ivanhoe Mines, with the company’s aggressive 70,000-metre drill program at our adjoining, majorityowned Western Foreland licenses … which is now ramping up into the dry season with 10 drill rigs active.
“Given that our current Western Foreland resources already total nearly 5 million tonnes contained copper, we also intend to assiduously advance the Makoko, Kiala and Kitoko discoveries towards early production to underpin the further expansion of our copper business.”
Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula projects and operations team celebrated the first feed of ore into the ball mills of the new Phase 3 concentrator on May 26, 2024.
The Phase 3 concentrator will process ore from the adjacent Kamoa 1 and 2 underground mines, as well as the connecting Kansoko underground mine. The design capacity of the Phase 3 concentrator is 30% larger than the original design capacities of the Phase 1 and 2 concentrators, which are located approximately 10 kilometres to the south.
The process design of all three concentrators is comparable, therefore the bulk of the equipment is the same or similar, resulting in a commonality of spare parts, while also leveraging operational and maintenance experience.
The Phase 3 concentrator increases the total design processing capacity of the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex to 14.2 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) and it is expected to increase annualized copper production to more than 600,000 tonnes, positioning Kamoa-Kakula as the world’s fourth-largest copper mining complex, and the largest copper mine on the African continent.