Kamoa-Kakula copper project, as part of Ivanhoe's mining assets invested by CITIC Metal, has commenced Phase 2 concentrator plant hot commissioning with a design throughput of 3.8 million tonnes of ore per year. First ore was introduced into the Phase 2 milling circuit on March 21, and first copper concentrate has been produced, approximately four months ahead of the original, announced development schedule. The Phase 1 concentrator plant with the same processing capacity as Phase 2 reached design ore throughput in August 2021, approximately three months after the start of hot commissioning. Given the experience gained by operations team in site during the ramp up of the Phase 1 plant, it is anticipated that the ramp up of the Phase 2 plant will go even smoother.
Currently, the Phase 1 and Phase 2 concentrator plants de-bottlenecking program is underway to further boost processing capacity and will be completed by Q2 2023. The program will see Kamoa-Kakula increase the combined design processing capacity of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 concentrator plants by approximately 21%, to 9.2 million tonnes per annum. When completed, this de-bottlenecking program will enable the copper production from Kamoa Copper’s first two phases to exceed 450,000 tonnes per year, positioning Kamoa Copper as the world’s fourth largest copper producer.
Besides, the Phase 3 expansion program of Kamoa-Kakula project is also under development which incorporates a newly-built metallurgical plant with the capacity of copper production of 500,000 tonnes per annum. It is anticipated that both Phase 3 project and metallurgical plant will commissioned by the end of 2024. Based on independent benchmarking, the project’s phased expansion scenario to 19 million tonnes per annum would position Kamoa-Kakula as the world’s second-largest copper mining complex, with peak annual copper production of more than 800,000 tonnes.
Watch a new video highlighting the commissioning of Kamoa-Kakula’s
Phase 2 concentrator plant: https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTg1MzE0NzUwMA==.html
