Canada-headquartered mining company Ivanhoe Mines has been granted 22 195 km² of greenfield prospecting rights for exploration in the Moxico and Cuando Cubango provinces of Angola.

A mining investment contract (MIC), officially granting the prospecting rights, was signed with the Angolan National Agency for Mineral Resources during the 2023 Angolan Mining Conference held in Luanda on November 23.

The extensive package of prospecting rights covers highly prospective, greenfield copper exploration ground.

Ivanhoe’s exploration activities are expected to start following team mobilisation in the new year.

“Ivanhoe has an exceptional record of discovering tier-one deposits in new frontiers . . . and we are now commencing exploration activities in the underexplored regions of Angola that we believe could host an extension of the Central African Copperbelt.

"We are incredibly privileged to own 100% of a massive exploration land package with outstanding geological potential. We will be deploying our in-depth, proprietary geological insights gained from Ivanhoe’s exploration team in the Western Foreland and at Kamoa-Kakula," comments Ivanhoe founder and co-chairperson Robert Friedland. 

Ivanhoe has achieved great success at its Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is also working to restart the historic ultrahigh-grade Kipushi zinc/copper/germanium/silver mine and is undertaking exploration at the Western Foreland project in the country.

In South Africa, it is advancing construction of the Platreef palladium/nickel/platinum/rhodium/copper/gold project.

Ivanhoe has committed to an initial exploration budget of $10-million in Angola.

The company's exploration team will conduct a reconnaissance visit to the licences in the first quarter of 2024 to scout out access, logistics and potential locations for a central camp.

As the rainy season ends in the second quarter, the team will start airborne magnetics, gravity and electro-magnetics geophysical surveys, as well as undertake a baseline soil geochemistry survey. The geochemistry survey will be conducted over a specific area, testing soil geochemistry responses through the cover sequences.

Later in the year, aircore and stratigraphic diamond drilling will be conducted to verify preliminary geological interpretations.