Ivanhoe’s Congo copper mine hits record production

The Canadian miner, which kicked off production at the asset last year, said the operation also reached a monthly all-time-high of 19,605 tonnes of copper produced in March.

Commercial production of the 3.8-million-tonne-a-year Phase 2 concentrator plant at Kamoa-Kakula was declared last week, Ivanhoe said. This pushed daily output to a fresh high on April 8, with 25,126 tonnes milled and 1,202 tonnes of copper produced.

The company is confident the early commissioning of the Phase 2 concentrator plant will enable Kamoa Copper to reach the upper end of its 2022 copper production guidance of 290,000 to 340,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate.

The Phase 3 expansion is also advancing, Ivanhoe said, with first copper production expected by the end of 2024.

Co-chairperson Robert Friedland, who made his fortune from the Voisey’s Bay nickel project in Canada in the 1990s, believes the complex will become the world’s second-largest copper mine with the highest grades among major operations.

The Vancouver-based company has also vowed to produce the industry’s “greenest” copper, as it works to become the first net-zero operational carbon emitter among the world’s top-tier copper producers. Friedland has not set a target date for achieving that goal.