Canadian miner Ivanhoe mines increased its monthly ore output at the Kamoa-Kakula mine by 13pc in February.
The miner noted in an announcement on Mar 1 that the copper project based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had produced 339,000mt of ore grading at 5.5pc copper last month. The company noted that the output had exceeded its Phase 1 steady-state requirement of 3.8mn mt per year for the first time in February.
The February output also includes 473,00mt grading 4.62pc copper from the Kansoko mine as well as 107,000mt grading at 9.01pc copper from Kakula’s high-grade copper operations.
The first phase of the Kamoa-Kakula project has achieved 78pc completion with the initial commissioning of the mine’s concentrator and first copper production on track to commence in July this year, Ivanhoe indicated. Completion of the mine’s Phase 2 expansion to 7.6mn mt per year is expected by Q3 2022.