Ivanhoe Mines has announced that Phase 1, 3.8 million-tonne-per-annum concentrator plant reached commercial copper production at the Kamoa-Kakula mine in the Democratic Re-public of the Congo (DRC) this month after achieving a milling rate of more than 80% of design capacity and recoveries very close to 70% for a continuous, seven-day period.
“To date, approximately 500,000 tonnes of ore have been milled, in-cluding approximately 263,000 tonnes grading 5.7% copper in July,” the Canadian business said in a statement.
Earlier this year, the miner said that pre-production ore stockpiles hold about 3 million tonnes grading 4.74% copper which contain more than 140,000 tonnes of copper. Mark Farren, Kamoa Copper’s CEO, disclosed that the “stockpile likely is to grow further as our monthly mining rate currently exceeds the Phase 1 milling rate, and only should be drawn down once the Phase 2 concentrator begins opera-tion in mid-2022.”