AMN - DRC: Kamoa-Kakula fourth largest copper discovery

A new mineral resource estimate for Ivanhoe Mines' Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project in the DRC establishes it as the world's fourth-largest copper discovery. Copper grades at the project are the highest by a wide margin of the world's top 10 copper deposits.

The new estimate for Kakula deposit boosts the combined project indicated resources to 1.03 billion tonnes at 3.17% copper, containing about 72 billion pounds of copper. This equates to a 50% increase in indicated resources at a 3% cut-off grade.

There is also an additional 183 million tonnes of inferred mineral resources at 2.31% copper, at a 1.5% cut-off.

The resource for the ultra-high-grade Kakula discovery has been prepared independently under the direction of consultants Amec Foster Wheeler and covers a mineralised strike length of 13.3 kilometres.

The tier-one Kamoa-Kakula Project is a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines, Zijin Mining and the government of the DRC.

For the first time, the updated estimate incorporates resources contained in the Kakula West discovery area and the saddle area between the main Kakula discovery area and Kakula West.

The new indicated resource has increased by 58 million tonnes on the May 2017 estimate. Inferred resources include an additional 9 million tonnes at a grade of 3.66% copper, at a 3% cut-off.

The Kakula high-grade mineralised trend remains open in multiple directions and Ivanhoe chairman Robert Friedland said the company expected that ongoing in-fill and step-out drilling would yield significant expansions and further upgrades to resources.

He said: “Kakula is the most remarkable mineral discovery we have seen during our 35-plus years in the exploration industry.

"The resource estimate now places Kamoa-Kakula ahead of Indonesia’s renowned Grasberg deposit as the world’s fourth-largest copper discovery in terms of contained copper. And it still is growing.

“The exceptionally high copper grades, thicknesses and continuity of the mineralisation at Kakula distinguish this discovery from anything else in the Central African Copperbelt.

“Based on the findings of the independent preliminary economic assessment completed in November last year, the resources we’ve discovered should allow us to build a world-scale, highly-mechanised, underground copper mine with an initial capital cost expected to be far lower than other operations of this size.

“With this initial mineral resource estimate at Kakula West, we can begin to evaluate technical and infrastructure options to expeditiously develop the zones of thick, high-grade, bottom-loaded chalcocite in this latest discovery area.”

He said that a development scenario using a mining rate of 6 million tonnes a year and a copper cut-off grade of 3% indicated that Kakula already had enough indicated resources to mine at an average grade of between 5.5% and 6% copper for about 30 years.

“If we lower the copper cut-off grade to 1%, which is higher than the mining grades at most of the world’s major copper mines, we could be mining almost 3% copper at Kakula for approximately 100 years.”

www.ivanhoemines.com