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Ivanhoe Mines reports positive bench-scale testwork on Kamoa, DRC

Ivanhoe Mines reports positive bench-scale testwork on Kamoa, DRC

Photo by Bloomberg

29th September 2014

By: Henry Lazenby

Creamer Media Deputy Editor: North America

  

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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Africa-concerned project developer Ivanhoe Mines on Monday reported the positive initial results of bench-scale metallurgical flotation testwork at the company's Kamoa copper project, near the mining centre of Kolwezi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's southern province of Katanga.

XPS Consulting & Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Ontario, conducted work on a composite sample of drill core from the Kansoko Sud and Kansoko Centrale areas in the southern part of the Kamoa resource area.

TSX-listed Ivanhoe explained that the sample was representative of the first four to five years of planned production from Kamoa, when Ivanhoe would start producing and selling a clean, high-grade copper flotation concentrate.

The tests returned copper recoveries of 88.3% at a concentrate grade of 39% copper, an improvement on the previously reported 85.9% life-of-mine average copper recovery projected in the November 2013 Kamoa preliminary economic assessment (PEA).

The tests also resulted in low arsenic levels in concentrate, which were expected to attract a premium from concentrate traders. Arsenic levels in concentrate were measured to be 0.010%, which was significantly lower than the limit of 0.5% imposed by Chinese smelters. Ivanhoe believed that Kamoa concentrate with such low arsenic levels should attract a premium from concentrate traders.

Flow sheet improvements derived from this testwork were also expected to result in lower up-front capital costs and reduced operational costs and risks.

The testing was the first metallurgical work done on material from the Kansoko Sud area of the resource. The results were integral to the final metallurgical-design input parameters that would be needed to complete the Kamoa development studies.

“This testwork further confirms the attractiveness of the high-grade Kansoko Sud area for initial mine development at Kamoa," said Ivanhoe executive chairperson Robert Friedland.

The testwork results were achieved using a laboratory flow sheet with a single stage of primary milling, followed by rougher and scavenger flotation. The rougher concentrate was cleaned in two stages to produce a high-grade copper concentrate without regrinding.

The scavenger concentrate and a screened, coarse portion of the final tailings were combined and reground to between 10 micrometres (µm) and 15 µm, before being cleaned in two stages. The concentrate was then combined with the cleaned, rougher concentrate to form the final concentrate. The new flow sheet was a simplification of the previous flow sheet, which included two stages of mainstream grinding and two separate regrind stages.

In line with the phased approach to project development outlined in the 2013 updated Kamoa PEA, the Kamoa development studies were progressing on the basis of an initial three-million-tonne-a-year mine and concentrator. The mine plan produced in the PEA focused initial mining in the shallower portion of Kansoko Sud, an area previously drilled with holes spaced 400 m apart.

Since completing the PEA, Ivanhoe had concentrated on substantially reducing the drill spacing in this area, initially to 100 m spacing on 200-m-spaced, east-west lines and, subsequently, to a 100-m-spaced grid. The goal of the drilling programme was to confirm grade and structural continuity of this high-grade zone at potentially elevated cutoffs.

Ivanhoe stated that results to date from the infill drilling were encouraging and had confirmed the continuity of the deposit and its copper grades. The close-spaced drilling, combined with a better understanding of geological controls, would allow resource models to be constrained at higher-grade cutoffs than the 1% total copper used to define the mineralised zone in the current estimate.

The mine and concentrator could further be split into modules to potentially better match the underground ramp-up and further reduce the preproduction development capital. This would be examined in more detail as part of the development studies to provide flexibility to the development of the Kamoa project, Ivanhoe said.

Meanwhile, the initial box cut for the decline portals, which were being built by Lubumbashi-based mining company Katanga SPRL, was progressing well.

Work on the box cut started in July and was expected to take about five months, after which the first set of twin declines could be started. The declines had been designed to intersect the high-grade copper mineralisation in the Kansoko Sud area, about 150 m below surface.

A recently reported drill hole in Kansoko Sud intercepted 15.7 m (true width) of 7.04% copper, at a 1.5% total copper cutoff.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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