Canada-based Ivanhoe Mines has stockpiled another 269,000mt of copper ore in December from its Kakula and Kansoko mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Compared with the prior month, the project’s mining output rose by 7.6pc with the average copper grade rising to 5.36pc. Currently, the ore stockpile stands at 1.52mn mt, with more than 61,000mt of contained copper.
The company will begin commercial production in July at a mining rate of 3.8mn mt per year and expects to have 125,000mt in contained copper in its stockpiles by then. The company expects to produce 400,000mt of copper per year at full capacity by Q3 2022 when Phase 2 of development (mining 7.6mn mt of ore annually) is complete.