Metals miner Ivanhoe Mines has announced“highly promising” preliminary testwork for improving copper recoveries at its Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in Kolwezi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Results show a significant improvement in total recoveries can be achieved by liberating copper from a tailings stream, the Canada-headquartered company says.
Based on these results, Kamoa-Kakula can further increase production, revenues and cash flow. “Despite the Phase 1 and 2 concentrators exceeding the nameplate recovery rate, the grade of copper in Kamoa-Kakula’s tailings is still much higher than that of most major copper mines globally. “This is a direct consequence of Kamoa-Kakula being the highest-grade major copper mine globally. However, we are leaving a significant amount of copper behind, which this planet so desperately needs right now for our energy transition,” states Ivanhoe founder and executive co-chairperson Robert Friedland. “If we can recover this copper, the production profile following the Phase 3 expansion could be in excess of 700 000 t/y.
Not only would this provide additional revenue and cash flow, but it would also reduce even further our tailings footprint. “We are targeting total copper recoveries in the mid-nineties from this breakthrough, as well as from the other concurrent workstreams. Our experienced team, with a proven record of execution and delivery, are leaving no stone unturned to improve the efficiency of extraction from this incredible endowment,” he adds. Last year, Kamoa Copper’s process engineering team, together with a number of internationally recognised external metallurgy specialists, initiated work to investigate ways to economically recover additional copper units from the tailings stream of the Phase 1 and 2 concentrators. The Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex last year milled about 7.1-million tonnes of ore at an average feed grade of 5.5% copper, producing 333 497 t of copper in concentrate
