Underground development at TSX-listed Ivanhoe Mines’ Kakula copper mine, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, totalled 1 842 m in August, bringing the cumulative total underground development completed to date to more than 20 km – about 6 km ahead of schedule.
The miner intends to issue the independent definitive feasibility study for the development of the six-million-tonne-a-year Kakula mine later this month, following which the company will also issue a prefeasibility study, including for mining the 1.6-million tonnes a year from the Kansoko mine, in order to “take full advantage of an expanded plant capacity of 7.6-million tonnes a year at Kakula".
Ivanhoe will also issue an updated, expanded preliminary economic assessment for the overall development plan of up to 19-million tonnes a year for all of the copper discoveries made, to date, at the Kamoa-Kakula project.
“Kamoa-Kakula is unique as it combines ultrahigh-copper grades with thick, shallow, flat-lying ore zones, providing the economies of scale and low mining costs of large, openpit mining operations, but without the visual environmental-impact associated with openpit mining,” co-chairperson Robert Friedland says.
The miner also plans to soon announce the appointment of an environmental consulting firm to audit Kamoa-Kakula’s greenhouse-gas intensity metrics, providing environmental, social and governance investors with independent and transparent verification of the project’s contribution towards Ivanhoe’s goal of producing the world’s greenest copper.