Name: Kansanshi mine.

Controlling company: Kansanshi is 80% owned by Kansanshi Mining, a subsidiary of First Quantum Minerals. The remaining 20% is owned by a subsidiary of Zambian Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM).

Location: The mine is located about 10 km north of the town of Solwezi and 180 km to the north-west of the Copperbelt town of Chingola, in Zambia.

Brief history: Since the fourth century, the Kansanshi mine has been mined intermittently by various parties. In 1969, the ZCCM approved the development of an openpit mine. Due to economic conditions, the processing project was halted and only mining was only conducted at the site until April1986, when it ceased, also owing to economic conditions. In 1988, mining resumed for a brief period before operations were formally ceased. Closure and reclamation activities were initiated by the ZCCM. Cyprus Amax Minerals Corporation acquired the mine from ZCCM and the government of Zambia. First Quantum Minerals acquired an 80% interest in the Kansanshi mine from Cyprus Amax in 2001. In 2002, it was proposed that Kansanshi be developed in two phases, and commercial production began in April 2005.
The mine has undergone several expansions since it began operating in 2005. From an initial production capacity of 110 000 t of copper, Kansanshi is now capable of producing 340 000 t of copper and more than 120 000 oz/y of gold.

Brief description: The Kansanshi mine has a current estimated mine life of 17 years.

Mining method: Mining is carried out in two openpits – Main and Northwest.
Products: Copper.

Major infrastructure and equipment: Mining is carried out using conventional openpit methods, excavators and a fleet of haul trucks.

Ore treatment is flexible to allow for variation in ore type through an oxide circuit, a sulphide circuit and a transitional ore mixed-float circuit, with facilities to beneficiate flotation concentrate to final cathode through the high-pressure leach circuit.

Sulphide ore is treated through crushing, milling and flotation to produce copper in concentrate. The expansion of the sulphide milling circuit was commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2008 to maintain finished copper production, as oxide ore depleted and sulphide ore grades began to fall as the mining horizon deepened.

Oxide ore is treated through crushing, milling, flotation, leaching and the solvent extraction electorwinning process to produce a sulphidic and gold-bearing flotation concentrate and electrowon cathode copper.

Gold recovery by gravity was expanded by the addition of four new gravity concentrators in April 2010, thus providing two concentrators per milling train, and increasing gold recovery from all ore types. Gemini tables were installed to treat the gravity concentrates and produce a high-grade concentrate for direct smelting to gold bullion.

Reserves: Total proven and probable reserves as at December 31, 2012, were 106.5-million tonnes leach ore, grading 1.34% total copper and 0.17 g/t gold; 144.1-million tonnes mixed float, grading 0.75% total copper and 0.14 g/t gold; and 503.7-million tonnes sulphide, grading 0.65% total copper and 0.13 g/t gold.

Resources: Total measured and indicated resources as at December 31, 2012, were 727.03-million tonnes, grading 0.86% total copper and 0.14 g/t gold. Total inferred resources were 365.24-million tonnes, grading 0.71% total copper and 0.11 g/t gold.

Geology: The deposit at Kansanshi occurs within a broad, north-west-trending, north-west closing antiform, which can be traced for about 12 km.
Kansanshi is a vein deposit developed within a tectonised rock sequence and, as such, constitutes a major mineralisation control. The main veins and vein swarms dip subvertically, perpendicular to the fold axes, in the plane of maximum extension.

A major north-south-trending and well mineralised zone of complicated faulting, abundant vein injection, breccia development and down-dropped rock units lie within the area delineated by Kansanshi's mining licence. Copper mineralisation at Kansanshi occurs as vein-specific mineralisation within and immediately adjacent to mesoscopic veins, as stratiform or concordant mineralisation in thin bands and veinlets parallel to bedding/foliation, and as disseminated mineralisation associated with albite-carbonate alteration. Brecciated zones may also be mineralised, but usually only within oxidised and supergene enrichment horizons, which display a complicated spatial distribution of secondary copper minerals.

Primary copper sulphide mineralisation is dominated by chalcopyrite, with very minor bornite, accompanied by relatively minor pyrite and pyrrhotite.

Oxide mineralisation is dominated by chrysocolla, with malachite, limonite and cupriferous goethite. The mixed zone includes oxide and primary mineralisation, but also carries significant chalcocite, minor native copper and tenorite. Some copper appears to be carried in clay and mica minerals, where it is essentially refractory.

Prospects: A multistage expansion project aims to increase copper output capacity to an estimated 400 000 t by 2015.

Contact Person: Director, Investor Relations, Sharon Loung.

Contact Details:
First Quantum Minerals
Tel +1 647 346 3934
Fax +1 604 688 3818
Email sharon.loung@fqml.com
Website http://www.first-quantum.com