https://www.miningweekly.com

Ivanhoe starts 25 000 m drill campaign to test new discovery at Kamoa

19th May 2016

By: Henry Lazenby

Creamer Media Deputy Editor: North America

  

Font size: - +

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Project developer Ivanhoe Mines has deployed up to nine drills to undertake a 25 000 m drilling campaign on the Kakula discovery on the Kamoa copper mining licence area, in the Democratic Republic of Congo – a project billed as the largest undeveloped high-grade copper deposit in the world.

The in-fill and exploration drilling programme would test the high-grade and flat-lying stratiform copper discovery, ideally situated for low-cost, mechanised mining and representing a significant extension of the Kamoa copper deposit, which Ivanhoe had discovered in 2008.

The Kamoa project entailed a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining.

The new drilling programme, which started after the end of the yearly rainy season, would target and delineate areas of thick, high-grade copper mineralisation intersected near surface at the Kakula discovery. The discovery lay within the large, 60 km2 Kakula exploration area, and was about 10 km south-west of the Kamoa project’s planned initial mining area, at Kansoko Sud.

The drilling programme would focus on a 12 km2 area along the projected trend of mineralisation intersected in two high-grade holes – DD996 and DD997 – that were completed last year. Drilling would target shallow resources at grades materially higher than the average grades at Kamoa that potentially could be incorporated into Kamoa’s Phase 1 feasibility study, which was currently under way, the company advised.

The programme would also include follow-up infill drilling aimed at defining indicated resources in areas where the continuity of materially higher grade was confirmed.

An independent prefeasibility study (PFS) on the first phase of development envisaged the construction of an underground mine, a concentrator processing facility and associated infrastructure.

The PFS proposed a yearly mine output of three-million tonnes at an average grade of 3.86% copper over a 24-year mine life, resulting in production of 100 000 t/y.

Edited by Samantha Herbst
Creamer Media Deputy Editor

Comments

Showroom

Condra Cranes
Condra Cranes

ISO-certified Condra manufactures overhead cranes, portal cranes, cantilever cranes and crane components: hoists, drives, end-carriages, brakes and...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Hanna Instruments Image
Hanna Instruments (Pty) Ltd

We supply customers with practical affordable solutions for their testing needs. Our products include benchtop, portable, in-line process control...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Resources Watch
Resources Watch
27th March 2024

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.097 0.133s - 92pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now