Ivanhoe Mines has announced that the heat-up of the new on-site 500,000-tonnes-per-annum, direct-to-blister copper smelter at Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex commenced on 21 November 2025 — a milestone that will see the facility become the largest copper smelter in Africa once fully operational.
At the smelter site, the start-up was inaugurated with a traditional blessing by the local community chief, and a ceremonial flame transfer from a traditional furnace (lwanzo lwa mikuba) to the smelter as part of a cultural ritual marking the occasion.
Executive Co-Chairman Robert Friedland described the event as “the passing of a torch representing transformative change,” noting that the project, which began with the discovery of high-grade copper at Kamoa-Kakula in 2008, now harnesses a fire “blessed by tradition” to power a facility that will set a new global standard for copper smelting.
Annebel Oosthuizen, Managing Director of the mining operations, added that the day belongs to every Kamoa Copper employee, saying, “We fired it up … this is our collective success. The fire we lit today is the light that will change the future — not just for Kamoa Copper, but for our community, our country, and the African continent.”
Technically, the smelter’s furnace has already reached approximately 800 °C, and this temperature will be maintained for about nine days to allow “hot” commissioning of boiler, steam systems, the concentrate dryer, as well as powering up furnace electrodes and the acid-circuit.
The company expects to feed the first concentrate into the smelter by the end of 2025. On-site concentrate stockpiles prior to start-up held about 37,000 tonnes of copper. As the smelter ramps up, unsold concentrate stockpiles — both in storage and within the smelting circuit — are expected to fall to around 17,000 tonnes during 2026.
To support stable operations, the smelter is backed by a 60-megawatt uninterruptible power supply (UPS) facility — nearing completion — which gives up to two hours of instantaneous backup power to insulate the smelter from voltage fluctuations in the national grid. In addition, the complex has a total of about 180 MW of on-site diesel-powered backup generator capacity.
Kamoa-Kakula’s management said that once fully ramped up, the smelter will primarily process concentrates from the mine’s Phase 1, 2 and 3 concentrators; any excess concentrate beyond that will be sent for toll-treatment at the nearby Lualaba Copper Smelter (LCS) in Kolwezi.
The company also confirmed that it intends to issue updated 2026 and 2027 copper production guidance for Kamoa-Kakula this week.
This milestone marks a significant advancement for Kamoa-Kakula, the broader mining industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and for Africa’s copper-smelting capacity — aligning with growing global demand for cleaner, sustainably produced copper.
